iSpot.tv Buys Tunity to Bolster Out-of-Home Measurement Capabilities

iSpot.tv, a leading measurement company in the industry’s effort to create alternative currencies to Nielsen, has found a solution to one of its biggest measurement deficiencies: tallying out-of-home audiences. The company has bought Tunity—which measures consumer viewing habits in public locations like bars, restaurants and gyms, waiting rooms and airports—in a stock and cash deal to bolster its out-of-home measurement capabilities. “This fills a major, major gap that every [measurement] company has had up until now, including Nielsen,” iSpot CEO and founder Sean Muller told Adweek. “I think we can bring the confidence to the marketplace of what out-of-home viewing and engagement truly looks like, and when somebody should pay for out-of-home—and when maybe they should not.” Tunity “figured out how to modernize out-of-home measurement, and how to do in a way that actually makes sense,” said Muller of the app, which allows uses to hear live audio from muted television on their mobile devices. NBCU Details Winter Olympics Ad Measurement Test With iSpot.tv to Fix ‘Broken’ System Last summer, Tunity partnered with NBCUniversal to allow the media company to report national out-of-home viewership of Olympic measurement for the first time. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though Tunity had raised $16 million prior to iSpot’s acquisition. Tunity’s headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel, will now become iSpot’s Tel Aviv office, and the company is retaining Tunity’s 10 employees. Tunity founder Yaniv Davidson will continue to lead that Tel Aviv-based group. “iSpot and Tunity share a similar DNA in that both organizations were purpose-built to solve massive structural problems in measurement using patented technologies and real-time solutions,” said Davidson in a statement. “We’re excited to combine the strength of our technologies, the passion of our engineers to bring smarter solutions to the marketplace. Our success is a benefit for advertisers and networks, but it also delivers palpable benefits to consumers.” Tunity’s consumer-facing app, which has had more than 2 million downloads, will continue to be called Tunity, said Muller. But Tunity Analytics will be folded into iSpot.tv out-of-home measurement, which will be integrated into all of the company’s products. A different OOH approach than Nielsen's Muller said Tunity’s approach for out-of-home measurement is superior to Nielsen’s People Meter system, which he said “depends on audio to measure out-of-home—where there’s no audio.” Nielsen’s OOH measurement also is restricted to only 44 markets, which Muller said excludes some regional sports networks. In December, Nielsen admitted that it had undercounted out-of-home audiences for national TV programming since September 2020, blaming a software issue for the error. For iSpot, the Tunity deal gives it a leg up among the measurement companies jockeying for position following Nielsen’s public stumbles. It has partnered with several media companies looking for Nielsen alternatives. “We want to unify all formats of television. And today, that’s linear, streaming and out-of-home,” said Muller. “You don’t have to wait until some future time to potentially have a system that can do this: that system exists today.” In January, iSpot was named NBCUniversal’s first certified measurement partner in the company’s efforts to create a new currency for cross-platform measurement on its One Platform ad offering. The companies teamed up for Q1 currency tests across One Platform, involving ads and program ratings, including February’s Super Bowl 56 and Winter Olympics. iSpot was also one of three companies (alongside Comscore and VideoAmp) picked for WarnerMedia’s measurement alternative. Last week, Discovery’s Chris Ryan, svp of ad sales research and strategy, Discovery, told Adweek that his company has a formal partnership in the works with iSpot.tv for its own alternative currency trials. This is the third company iSpot has acquired in the last 14 months, following its purchase of DRMetrix last October (to expand its ability to measure emerging formats for addressable advertising) and ad measurement company Ace Metrix in January 2021. And Muller said more deals are likely on the way. “There’s a lot of interesting things out there,” he said, adding that the primary objective when looking for a company to acquire: “does the technology help us move the industry forward on measurement and currency?”