Discovery, OMG Set Measurement Trials With Comscore and VideoAmp

Discovery is the latest media company to publicly test alternative measurement currencies to Nielsen as the industry works to overhaul its ratings metrics and more accurately represent a cross-platform audience. The company has teamed with Omnicom Media Group on a data trial pilot—using measurement data from Comscore and VideoAmp—that Discovery hopes will enable it to transact on those alternative metrics in this year’s upfront. Following Nielsen’s public stumbles over the past year related to audience undercounting during the pandemic, “we think it's necessary now to explore currency alternatives, on an experimental basis,” Jon Steinlauf, chief U.S. advertising sales officer, Discovery Inc., told Adweek. Discovery is working with five advertisers as part of the trial with OMG: AT&T, State Farm, an automotive brand, a retail brand and a CPG brand. Discovery Latest Upfront Week Presenter to Set In-Person Plans The company is currently looking back at fourth-quarter linear deals that have already run to see “if these currency providers can capture all of the audience—and if so, what does that look like,” said Chris Ryan, svp of ad sales research and strategy, Discovery. Next, Discovery hopes to test live cross-platform deals in the second quarter with those same clients. “At the very heart of it is, can we get the right, most accurate measurement of linear television?” said Steinlauf, “Whatever comes of this, we think the time is right now to explore.” “Understanding that the video currency of the future has to better align with our advertisers’ objectives, we need to be transacting cross-platform on metrics that directly relate to our advertisers’ audiences and are reliably measured,” Geoff Calabrese, chief investment officer, Omnicom Media Group, said in a statement. “OMG’s partnership with Discovery will accelerate our ability to deliver on this imperative for our clients.” Discovery has been looking into alternative currencies for more than a year. Upfront ‘experimentation’ “The first order of business is to make sure we have a currency trial that is stable and accurate, and reflective of the full audience for our networks,” said Steinlauf. Following that, Steinlauf expects that in the upfront, “we will see some experimentation based on these trials,” particularly the five clients involved in the test. Discovery will hold its first-ever in-person upfront presentation during upfront week, setting an event for Tuesday morning, May 17 at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York. In addition to Comscore and VideoAmp, Discovery also has a relationship with iSpot.tv, and Ryan expects to announce “something more formal with them and another agency” down the line. Measurement vs. merger Discovery is proceeding with this work in the face of the company’s looming megamerger with WarnerMedia , which execs now say will close in the second quarter. When asked how the merger will affect these measurement trials and plans, Steinlauf said, “we can only speak for what we’re doing. We can’t speculate.” Several other media companies are also working on measurement alternatives to Nielsen after several public missteps last year, which led to the Media Rating Council stripped Nielsen’s national and local TV ratings services of their accreditation in September. More recently, Nielsen admitted in December that it had undercounted out-of-home audiences for national TV programming since September 2020. WarnerMedia is working with Comscore, iSpot.tv and VideoAmp as it tests alternative methods of measuring TV ad performance across platforms. Paramount (formerly ViacomCBS) and Dentsu have partnered on VideoAmp data trials. And NBCUniversal set iSpot.tv as its first certified measurement partner, teaming up Q1 currency tests across its One Platform ad offering, including the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl. Publicis Media is the first holding company to test NBCUniversal’s new measurement currency.

Measurement

Discovery, OMG Set Measurement Trials With Comscore and VideoAmp

State Farm, AT&T among five advertisers in alternative currency test ahead of upfront

Jason Lynch

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