An Industry In Transition Was On Full Display At The Cynopsis Data and Measurement Conference

If there was one key theme to this year’s Cynopsis Data and Measurement Conference, it was that the television industry is completely disjointed and that the lack of integration among all the current players is having a negative effect on advertisers.

Not that long ago, TV was easy. There were a few big networks, a few hundred local affiliates, everyone watched shows on the same schedule and Nielsen ratings were the only measurement standard that was needed.

We’re a long way from there now.

TV Today Looks Like The Holy Roman Empire

What the industry looks like today is a patchwork of barely connected fiefdoms, each creating its own set of measures and standards. (I often describe it as the Holy Roman Empire, which was itself a collection of barely connected fiefdoms.) 

That’s why the term “cross platform measurement” came up so frequently during the show. Because while advertisers still need to buy linear and OTT separately, viewers don’t make that distinction—it’s all just “TV” to them and they often cross platforms in their viewing within the course of an evening.

A good part of the reason cross-platform measurement is so hard is because vendors have created walled gardens as a way to ensure that they are able to monetize the data they get from their users. 

This is especially true on OTT platforms where streaming device manufacturers like Roku and Amazon have gotten into the advertising business, aggregating audiences from smaller networks that they then sell on a programmatic basis, while charging larger networks a premium of as much as 30% for the ads that run on their platforms.

To work around these walled gardens, advertisers will need to find a way to work together with networks and measurement companies. 

“Standardized transparent measurement can preserve TV value,” noted Jonathan Steuer, Omnicom’s Chief Research Officer. 

But how to standardize remains an issue. 

“[Solutions] vary by agency and client and are driven by client needs,” added Helen Katz, SVP Global Director at Publicis Spine. “It’s not one size fits all.”

The Move To A More Integrated Ecosystem Will Happen … Eventually

There are some positive developments however, especially around the growth of data. While TV may not yet have digital levels of data, the feedback loop is getting much better thanks to additional data from ACR (automatic content recognition) vendors and others. 

That means that planning and execution, which typically happened independently of each other, due to the lack of anything close to a real time feedback loop can now begin to coordinate. 

“Planning and execution are compressing a bit,” Videa’s President Shereta Williams noted. “It is possible to see how a campaign is performing, what was missed and actually make changes in mid-flight.”

By and large, panelists felt that the players would eventually all start to move outside of their walled gardens and begin to cooperate with each other, so that data-driven cross-platform advertising becomes a reality as everyone starts to settle on a common currency.

“The Holy Grail is to unlock all walled gardens and have true cross platform measurement. But it’s still a long way away,” said Videa’s Williams in her sum up.

Her last point seemed to be the common consensus: while everyone agrees that a more transparent cross platform measurement system is what’s best for the industry, it will be several years before we finally get there.