TV buyers today have more options when it comes to audience measurement than ever before.

What's more, TV buyers are finally getting more optionality of transactional currency, too. The Ubiquitous Measurement panel at TV's Advanced Advertising Summit at Cannes Lions 2022 explored the ways in which measurement and currency differ and how buyers can get a unified understanding of audiences in a complex media landscape. The panel featured Carol Hinnant, chief revenue officer at Comscore; Ameneh Atai, general manager of audience measurement at Nielsen; Avi Brown, SVP, revenue products at Samba TV; and was moderated by Jay Prasad, chief strategy officer at LiveRamp.

Watch the full conversation above.

The buyers really want simplicity, and they want the same metrics across platforms to be deduplicated.
- Carol Hinnant

Our panelists agreed--measurement and currency are not the same. Currency is the metric on which buyers and sellers mutually agree to transact. Sometimes the currency metric is the same as the measurement, but it doesn't have to be. The challenge then becomes simplifying and unifying audiences and measurement across platforms. Without a deduplicated look at campaign performance across a consistent audience, brands are in the dark when it comes to campaign efficacy.

Depending on what metrics are important to the buyer, they may find more value out of measuring campaign effectiveness on a different metric on which they transact. "We really have to focus on the business models," said Brown. "Not all brands are the same. So not all brands are looking to measure the same thing."

What's most important is the ability for brand marketers, those that fuel and fund this entire industry, to leverage tools to drive the bottom line for their businesses. If their advertising efforts and their media investments don't actually cause their businesses to grow, then none of this matters.
- Avi Brown

If business outcomes are to be the focus of measurement as a marker of campaign success, will there come a day when outcomes are the currency for transactions, too? That was the question posed by moderator Jay Prasad.

It's a point where media sellers and media buyers, and our panelists, often have different opinions. "Marketing mix modeling has existed for years, but no one uses it as currency," Atai pointed out. Media sellers are hesitant to want to transact on such volatile and inconsistent metrics.

What can we all agree upon? Today's advanced TV campaigns need to be transacted and measured on advanced audiences.

I think everyone understands that we need to go beyond demographics. The market has spoken. We're all trying to solve for that.
- Ameneh Atai