With connected TV (CTV) spreading fast, advertising and media industry leaders want the measurement metrics to shape up quickly too. In the era where precision targeting is the primary focus for every marketer and advertiser, and with CTV assuming a pivotal role in the marketing playbook, measurement is critical. The pressing question, however, is, what constitutes an authentic measurement process? Given that BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council) is already measuring TV audiences, the prospect of extending its capabilities to include CTV seems promising.
While BARC possesses the technical know-how and infrastructure, the call to action is for stakeholders to converge and collaborate on the issue.
“CTV is easy for BARC to do, It’s not a problem of capacities; it’s a problem of aligning stakeholders. The issue is whether stakeholders want it or not, there are diverse interests. BARC will figure out some pilots and act accordingly,” said Shashi Sinha, CEO of IPG Mediabrands India, and current chairman of BARC.
Smart CTV sets will exceed 40 million by 2025, ending the monopoly of broadcasters on the large screen and leading to around 30 percent of content consumed on large screens to be social, gaming, digital, etc, according to an EY-FICCI report.
Scattered data sources are available for CTV but the authenticity of it is often questioned.
“At the moment measurement is available but it is still platform led and not audience led. For example, the different platforms are walled gardens and one integrated measurement across is difficult, like we have for TV, for example. Due to the digital nature of the medium, measurement is quick and accessible to marketers, however, we need solutions which work outside the current silos to give holistic medium-level measurement,” said Niti Kumar, chief operations officer, Starcomm.
If there is no measurement, there is no advertising, said experts. It is the heart of advertising across all ad formats and channels, and CTV is no different.
“Today, a CTV advertiser gets all sorts of measurement data based on their needs, like reach, brand lift, impressions, CTR, frequency, etc, but are these enough? The answer is a big and definite no,” said Kumar Awanish, chief growth officer, Cheil India.
“Today, there are more than 5,000 con apps operating on CTV; there are fraudsters who are buying low-priced inventory and selling it as premium, there are fabricated ad calls from non-existent devices; there is bot fraud, viewership fraud and what not,” Awanish added.
Even with tech players entering this domain to address these concerns, there is a need to speed up the process and devise a mechanism to address this gap in measurement.