A New Era in Measurement & Currencies

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For our final episode of Amobee Out Loud’s first season, I sit down with Kelly Abcarian, EVP of Measurement and Impact at NBCUniversal to discuss the new era of measurement and currencies. Over the past two and a half years, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated streaming adoption among consumers, making cross-platform measurement an imperative for the industry. Now more than ever, broadcast companies like NBCU have a responsibility to deliver their most advanced audience insights to advertisers, says Kelly, to allow advertisers to transact on that data for the most efficient and effective advertising experience.

NBCU’s Test-and-Learn Shows What’s Possible with Cross-Platform Measurement

Throughout our conversation, Kelly shares insights from a recent pilot NBCU conducted in partnership with Conviva and iSpot during the 2022 Winter Olympics and Super Bowl LVI. The partnership sheds light on what’s possible with today’s advertising technology to achieve cross-platform measurement, especially when like-minded companies come together to bridge the gaps. They were able to unify cross-platform measurement to show the whole ad-buy on NBCU properties and deliver actionable insights to advertisers within hours. One learning from the experiment was that roughly 64% of NBCU’s total audience were Peacock-only viewers that couldn’t effectively be reached on linear TV. They were also able to determine what percent of their participating advertisers had reached impression weight on linear versus digital so that advertisers could redistribute their impression weight across NBCU’s properties. 

Of course, this is an example of cross-platform measurement within one media company’s ecosystem, but Kelly feels strongly that it bodes well for cross-platform measurement that is inclusive of competitors. What remains to be seen is whether like-minded media and adtech companies are willing to form the strategic alliances that would make this possible. 

“Measurement companies need to also think differently about their interoperability with each other, and not just with [broadcasters and publishers],” says Kelly, … especially if they want to improve efficiencies for advertisers and the viewing experience for consumers. 

Will Currencies & Measurement Always Be Synonymous? 

Historically, the television industry has always treated currency and measurement as synonymous, but Kelly predicts that as new metrics become possible to measure, that the industry will start to treat them as separate from currency. NBCU’s recent pilot also illuminated new metrics about their lighter ad-load, completion rates, ad interruption rates, and even ad share-of-voice. 

The challenge for broadcasters, she says, is to coalesce around the few currencies that can give advertisers the most flexibility and interoperability to optimize their campaign, while creating the most consistency possible. She compares it to the credit rating system: TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax don’t completely agree on the significance of all consumer data, yet they were still able to create a shared system that offers lenders a consensus rating on a consumer’s credit health. She hopes that the media industry can create a similar experience for measurement and currency. 

These are just some of the highlights from my conversation with Kelly – we also talk in depth about the complexity of measuring deduplicated reach, advertiser expectations for measurement between different publishers, and why the average age demographic for linear viewers isn’t as old as we might think. 

Watch or listen to the full episode with Kelly via amobee.com/podcast. Don’t forget to leave a review on your preferred listening platform and join the conversation on our LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. We’d love to hear what topics you want us to cover in a potential Season 2 of Amobee Out Loud.