Advanced Television

Study: Multi-currency ad transition to deliver benefits

January 12, 2023

By Colin Mann

As the TV industry shifts to a multi-currency marketplace, the primary perceived benefit is improved integration of cross-platform inventory better to enable transacting and counting of all ad delivery and audiences across all forms of viewing. However, lack of collaboration, new demands on systems, and process changes are creating roadblocks in the transition.

This is according to a new study on the transition to a multi-currency TV advertising market commissioned by the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), 4A’s and ANA. Conducted by Deloitte, the study examines the benefits and challenges for different categories of industry participants and aims to help establish priorities for industry collaboration and cooperation.

Based on research with a cross-section of industry participants, the study also reveals:

  • The transition is not a monolithic experience: Constituents are making the transition at different rates, with different challenges, and often have different goals.
  • The transition is happening in phases: The currencies (and challengers) in the transition continue to progress in phases from new to alternative to advanced.
  • The industry is in a ‘test and learn’ phase: Players are conducting early trials, experimenting, and undertaking early systems integrations.
  • Multi-currency is the future of the premium TV/video marketplace: Most industry participants expect to see two to three currency-grade TV measurement vendors, potentially up to five – but no more.
  • Panels are still relevant: The majority perspective is that big data alone is not the future of measurement – and panels will continue to play a critical role in currencies. However, perspectives about the appropriate use cases for a panel vary and include uses such as calibration, personification, or validation.
  • Standards and collaboration are the catalyst for acceleration: Identifying the common challenges and collaborating on solutions can help overcome the barriers to adoption of advanced currencies. However, most advanced currency collaboration is occurring across constituencies (e.g., network to agency) and not within constituencies (e.g., agency to agency) which has limited benefits for sharing best practices and accelerating the transition.

“The TV market is changing rapidly thanks to shifting consumer preferences, new data sets, distribution channels, monetisation approaches and advertising models,” said Ashwini Karandikar, EVP Media, Technology & Data, 4A’s. “TV measurement and currency have also evolved, but at a slower pace, resulting in an incomplete picture of unduplicated delivery and reach and frequency of ad campaigns. This, coupled with the pandemic and streaming wars, has altered the landscape and hastened change. Though the industry is in transition, and the future of TV currency is yet to be determined, the study reinforces how important collaboration, standardisation, and consensus-building will be in the industry’s acceleration toward a multi-currency market.”

The study also identified how different organisations are at varying engagement levels of the multi-currency transition depending on their resource allocation and incentives to change:

  • National TV networks are driven by more accurate representation of viewership and the potential for sales upside and yield gains. They have a very high level of engagement, with some variance largely based on the size and resources of the network.
  • Advertisers have a wide spectrum of motivations and engagement levels. Many large and sophisticated advertisers are driven by better measurement that will connect their TV spend to their overall marketing strategy, and potentially increased return on marketing investment. Other advertisers are motivated by preserving the rate benefits or risk asymmetry of the legacy models and therefore have low incentives and engagement.
  • Media Agencies are driven by better measurement for clients and by cost and loss avoidance. Agencies have a moderate and tempered level of engagement.

“It’s exciting to see a consensus emerging across the industry that the multi-currency transition has a potential to deliver real benefits, including better measurement of cross-platform video services, new transaction opportunities, and a faster pace of innovation,” said Jon Watts, Managing Director, CIMM. “This is all hugely positive. At the same time, it’s clear that unlocking the full potential of the transition will require investment, careful experimentation, commercial flexibility, and a willingness to take risks. Our priority at CIMM is to support the entire ecosystem, and this study provides tremendous clarity about where and how best to focus our efforts.”

Deloitte interviewed 50 industry leaders and subject matter experts across six constituencies, and used qualitative analysis to find patterns and to identify perspectives on the transition. The exploratory approach and industry level perspective enabled the identification of the forces driving change, outline the benefits and challenges facing different categories of industry participants, and suggest priorities for industry collaboration and cooperation.

“Through our research, we identified that organisations are at different levels of engagement in the multi-currency transition depending on their motivations, incentives to change, and resources available to commit to the transition,” said Mike Dean, Managing Director at Deloitte Consulting LLP. “Looking at the experiences and perspectives of those engaged in and driving the transition across the national TV marketplace has helped us to understand the dynamics and the relationships between constituencies, the processes that connect them, and the actions needed to go forward.”

“One area of broad agreement among the constituencies is the need for certain common foundational standards to help ensure non-proprietary aspects are aligned and to reduce inconsistency and variance,” said Jackson Bazley, EVP, Measurement for Marketers, Data & Analytics, ANA. “It also underscores marketers’ and the ANA’s desire for neutral, objective, and transparent measurement solutions that are standards driven and validated through accreditation.”

 

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