Who Is Watching Television? October 20, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentby Frank S. Foster, Monday, Oct 20, 2008 1:30 PM ET
Wow. Sixteen million, seven hundred thousand people watched ‘Dancing With the Stars.’” At 35,000 feet and above the roar of the jet engines, 3B nudged me out of my book. I looked over at her. She stared back. “Sixteen million,” she repeated. “Really,” I deadpanned. “Says right here in the New York Times. Sixteen million, seven hundred thousand people sat in front of their televisions and watched those celebrities on CBS twirl,” she asserted. “It’s an estimate,” I said. “No, it’s a count,” she replied with conviction. At this point I had to make a decision. I could not have cared less what she thought. But while waiting on the tarmac before takeoff, she had told me in great detail how she was recently promoted to be the head of all advertising for her organization. Her business card stated she was an EVP with a well known, Fortune 50 company. We had talked briefly about online and on-demand television strategy. Could she really be that ill-informed? I must have misunderstood her. Or perhaps she was joking. “Did anyone call you?” I asked with a smile. “I don’t take phone calls after eight o’clock,” she said. “So you weren’t counted?” I teased. “Oh, they know that you’re watching,” she assured me. “Who’s they?” “Nielsen.” She was starting to scare me. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I said. “They get the data from my television, they get data from the others.” Now at this point, I had a sinking feeling she might actually be a member of a Nielsen panel — which would explain a great deal and make me feel a little sheepish to boot. “Oh, so you are a Nielsen family?” I offered. “No,” she said. “My name is not Nielsen. I gave you my card. It is Swanson,” she spat indignantly. READ THE REST—–>Who Is Watching Television?
The Online Advertising Conundrum — More Metrics, Less Meaning September 11, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentThe Online Advertising Conundrum — More Metrics, Less Meaning
Posted September 11th, 2007 by Joe Marchese
Last week’s Metrics Insider, by ComScore Chief Research Officer Josh Chasin, does an excellent job of laying out one of the major issues facing online advertising: the lack of measurement standardization. Time and again it has been a topic discussed in this Spin: you can’t build a sustainable, advertising-supported marketplace if you can’t establish a meaningful unified currency for exchange. Trying to build a marketplace without a unified currency is like trying to build a house (the Internet) on a poor foundation (advertising). There are many ways to build the house in the short-term (VC, PE and other sources of non-sustainable capital), but the more you try to expand the house, the more likely it will crumble to the ground due to the weak foundation. And I think we all know how the house in our analogy reacts when faced with poor weather (economy).
And the issue goes beyond just a lack of standardization. The greater issue is that, regardless of efforts to standardize measurements, money (advertisers) is still seeking the wrong metrics!
Let’s take a quick look at the lack of standard metrics first. In our house-building analogy (which I promise to beat into the ground over the course of this article), this lack is analogous to trying to build a foundation when every tool you use gives you a different reading.
It’s not easy to create unanimously accepted standards when there are five people in a room. I am not sure how we have even come this far given the magnitude of self-interest among the many participants interested in defining online measurement standards.
The larger problem for the entire online eco-system, including advertisers, is that standardization of measurement won’t matter if advertisers continue to demand meaningless, and even harmful, metrics. Going back to our housing analogy, building the online advertising marketplace on the “wrong” metrics, is like building our foundation with the wrong materials altogether. Instead of concrete, we’re using silly putty — destined to collapse our house.
I have written before about how creating a market for impressions is corroding the entire Internet eco-system (re: “Advertising’s Role In Crippling The Internet As A Medium”). The basic gist is that if money demands impressions, then online publishers (and ad networks) will do what’s necessary to generate impressions.
The problem is that, unlike with television, the impression is not an efficient proxy for quality online. Television could only generate impressions by providing value to people, thus the impression-based market facilitated a solid foundation for television’s house. Online, there are a number of ways to generate and increase impressions without actually benefiting the people. Worse, most of these unscrupulous methods for achieving impressions make the impressions worthless, or of negative value, to brand advertisers.
So we have a flood of poor quality product in the marketplace, degrading the quality of our foundation and creating a massive misalignment of goals between content viewers and content producers. Even among quality content, not all impressions are worth the same to all advertisers. In the end the advertisers are forced to take an average value of impressions, which accounts for the deceptive methods for generating the metric they demanded and the inability to define which quality impressions will deliver the most value. This average is obviously well below what would be necessary to support quality content producers trying to produce impressions without “cheating,” and so our house crumbles.
For the sake of space we won’t get into the misalignment among advertisers, publishers and consumers created by utilizing clicks as a foundation metric. I will simply refer you to just a few of my favorite examples of the ads currently polluting the Internet seeking clicks: “Win a free _____” “Shave Britney’s Head” “System Error, Click Here.” And those are just the ads themselves; I’m not mentioning the various techniques online content publishers use to “trick” visitors into clicking.
My new favorite saying is, “The goal isn’t to connect brands to impressions, the goal is to connect brands to people.” What’s needed is a new system of measurements based on a true and solid “foundation metric” that actually means something to each advertiser, can’t be faked by publishers, and won’t incentivize the continued pollution of our online eco-system for the people. But how do you measure this? The foundation metric will have to be a proxy for content quality, account for content type and be a measure of volume delivered. Finally, as discussed in the Metrics Insider piece, the foundation metric will have to be standardized for exchange. What are your thoughts on what would be included in a proper “foundation metric”?
The Unspoken Truth July 31, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentThe Unspoken Truth
Posted July 31st, 2007 by Gregory Wilson
There is a lot of talk these days about measuring results and whether advertising agencies should be more proactive when it comes to finding ways to be accountable for their work.
To date, agencies have been somewhat hesitant. And, while the reasons are many, there is one universal truth that goes unspoken. For most agencies, it is far more lucrative to be paid for the possibility of success, than it is for the actuality of results.
The good news is that a new engagement study, recently released by Omnicom Group’s OMD, may encourage a few agencies to be more open to the idea of accountability.
What the results from the study indicate is that one engaged viewer is worth eight regular viewers. Not to mention that for the brands involved, factoring engagement into the equation increased measurable return on investment 15% to 20% over models that only factored in GRPs.
Coincidently, Nielsen/NetRatings recently announced that they would start measuring time spent rather than page views.
Why is this important?
Because if “time spent” is measurable on a page, which it is, then it is also measurable when someone clicks into and out of a commercial on a digital platform. When do they click out? Usually when the commercial becomes less engaging for them.
I know. Many will argue that time spent does not equal engagement. So for now, let’s just say that it does appear to be a fairly good indicator of engagement if the viewers are allowed to activate the commercial and leave when they want to.
Now what would happen if an advertising agency said that instead of receiving a fee for creating a commercial based on hours worked, they would like to be paid based on how long their commercial involved the viewer for?
In other words, the more engaging their work, the more the agency would make. The less engaging the work, the less they’d make.
Would advertisers be willing to work this way?
Considering that an engaged viewer is worth eight regular viewers, and that ROI increases 15% to 20% with engagement, you would think that advertisers would be motivated to take their agencies up on this.
Except for that unspoken truth thing: for most agencies, it is far more lucrative to be paid for the possibility of success, than it is for the actuality of results.
Fortunately, most is not all.
And there are a handful of agencies — Crispin, Goodby, Wieden, BBDO — that are, for good reason, confident in the work they create. You’d think that they would like nothing more than to be paid based on how well their work engages the viewer.
The fact is, under the current labor-based compensation model, engaging work and non-engaging work are compensated equally. As most agencies are better at the latter than the former, the outcry has been minimal. Failure, has in fact, proven to be quite lucrative for most agencies.
It’s only the truly brilliant shops that are leaving money on the table.
Should things remain the same now that we can determine engaging commercials from non-engaging commercials on digital platforms? And especially now that it seems as if engaging commercials are worth more to the advertiser?
The digital marketplace and its new measurement capabilities offer the opportunity to liberate advertising from the clutches of mediocrity. And to let those agencies that are better than the rest rise even further to the top — both in the work that they do, and in the way that they’re paid for it.
Nielsen Whips Out Mobile Measurement Yardstick June 7, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentNielsen Wireless Debuts
June 06, 2007
By Steve McClellan
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NEW YORK The Nielsen Co. today introduces a new service, Nielsen Wireless, designed to track how the nation’s 230 million cellphone owners use their handsets to access the Internet, mobile video and other content.
The service is rolling out in several phases, said Jeff Herrmann, the Chicago-based vp who oversees Nielsen Wireless, as well as the company’s videogame measurement service launched last fall.
In phase one, Nielsen Wireless plans to assess the size of the market and determine how various offerings impact traditional cellphone use. Phase two involves measuring mobile content through a new panel that Herrmann and his team are currently developing. That panel should be operational in two to three months, Herrmann said.
Nielsen has already segmented its 10,000-household national TV ratings panel by wireless carrier and is in the process of identifying the Web sites and mobile video outlets those panelists use. Current data reveals that an estimated 8 million people viewed mobile video in May, while more than 33 million users accessed the Web via their phones.
Herrmann said that the company would begin marketing the Nielsen Wireless service, which become available next month, to prospective clients in short order. In addition to wireless carriers and mobile content providers, Nielsen will also target traditional media vendors, agencies and advertisers as clients.
“The value of an entertainment medium is directly proportional to how it is measured,” said Herrmann. “This new mobile measurement service demonstrates Nielsen’s continued commitment to follow content wherever consumers take it.”
Nielsen data for the first quarter showed that 25 percent of 18-34 year olds used their mobile phone to connect to the Internet, while at least 7 percent of that age group viewed mobile video programming. The segmented data from the national TV ratings panel offered some surprises. For example, it showed that the current mobile video audience is somewhat older than might be expected, as 46 percent is 35 or older (while 54 percent is male).
The new service will also provide glimpses into the viewing preferences of TV audiences based on their wireless phone brands. For example, the ratings for the May 23 American Idol finale on Fox was higher among people in Verizon households than those in Sprint or AT&T.
Greatest Hits: Measuring User Engagement In A New Metrics World April 30, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a comment| Greatest Hits: Measuring User Engagement In A New Metrics World |
| by Michael Rosen, Monday, Apr 30, 2007 6:00 AM ET |
| THE ONLINE INDUSTRY HAS COME a long way since we used to measure our traffic with “hits.” Gone are the days when an eyeball was an eyeball, was an eyeball. Yet, the debate continues on the most measured medium in history. Even though we offer far more accountability than any offline medium, publishers must still work to show advertisers that users are engaged with their online ads. Earlier this month, the IAB challenged Nielsen//NetRatings and comScore to be more transparent in their research methodologies so that publishers can reconcile discrepancies between the two measurement companies and their own server logs. Assessing a site’s potential to deliver ad impressions by number of page views and the number of unique visitors is beginning to come into question under the weight of the advent of AJAX and the increased use of video. Many have dropped the page view altogether as an audience metric. To fill the void, vendors are coming up with their own interpretations of engagement. Viewpoint has something called the Engagement Index for rich media ads, which takes into account things like ad display time, clicks-to-run and interaction rate. E-mail vendor Lyris came up with its own Engagement Index weighing things like opens, CTRs, unsubscribes, forwards, and resulting transactions to come up with its metric. Meanwhile, comScore recently announced that how often a user returns to the site is a good metric for judging user engagement. This “visits” metric, defined as the number of times a unique person accesses content (with breaks between accesses of at least 30 minutes) is a key component of user engagement, explained comScore. I think there is something to the loyalty factor when considering comScore’s results in how viewers perceive the use of any one particular site over their competitors. The introduction of these new metrics based on “visits” provides an alternative for measuring user engagement that tells us how frequently visitors are actually returning to the site to view more content. While each of the “visits” metrics offers a different measure of frequency, the “average visits per visitor” is the most illustrative of return visits per unique individual during the course of a month. Used in concert with the “unique visitors” metric, this measure can help give a more comprehensive view of a site’s performance, according to comScore. Additionally, I have found that tracking “daily users” helps to determine the overall loyalty factor, yet another important way to gauge a site’s performance. If engagement — as defined by how often a user returns to a site — has become the gold standard, then it is incumbent on us as publishers to foster loyalty for ourselves and our advertisers. With the pending DoubleClick and Google deal, speculation is that Google will increase their activity around display advertising. Consider though that vertical content providers are much better suited to provide loyal users with relevant content. The challenge and opportunity therefore, for vertical content publishers, is to combine engagement metrics with strong compelling content to those users who are engaged with the site. Another is to offer content to users anytime and anyplace, through the Web and on their mobile device, for instance. At the end of the day, no matter what metric you use, content is what drives loyalty and engagement. |
