Measurement company VideoAmp said it will be incorporating outcome data from a variety of providers into its VALID data and technology platform.

The data will provide advertisers with insights into how well exposure to messages on linear TV, streaming and digital channels creates consumer activity, including sales.

VideoAmp will collect data from a range of industries, including consumer packaged goods, credit cards, auto and pharmaceutical. 

“These new capabilities unlock scaled outcome measurement for our clients, across verticals,” VideoAmp chief product officer Josh Hudgins said. “Through these integrations, VideoAmp is laying the groundwork for standardized outcome reporting across industries and affording our clients the ability to maximize the value of their media.”

Affinity Solutions, Circana, Polk Automotive Solutions from S&P Global Mobility, PlaceIQ and PurpleLab have already agreed to integrate their data into VALID.

In addition to the benefits for advertisers, VideoAmp said integrating outcomes into its platform will enable media companies to unlock attribution insights to tie their premium ad inventory to actual business outcomes for their advertising clients. 

“Advertisers can noticeably improve ROAS by leveraging Circana’s 100% deterministic data in the planning process and by optimizing their media buy toward those programs, dayparts, etc., that most resonate with their customers,” said Amy Marentic, president of global solutions at Circana, which accumulates data from shopper loyalty cards.  

“We are in a new era of TV advertising, one where there is ample opportunity for brands to better measure — and therefore better understand — the value and outcomes of their investments,” PurpleLab VP of advertising partnerships and strategy Ted Sweetser added. “PurpleLab is proud to partner with VideoAmp to help deliver on this promise. The job of the CMO will get a little easier today, as VideoAmp brings a real understanding of ROI to television, a space where half the dollars have gone with a fraction of the measurability.”

Measurement company VideoAmp said that $1 billion in media buys have already been guaranteed using its measurement as a currency this year.

VideoAmp is on track to reach $1.5 billion by the end of the year, the company added, and is growing at a rate of 651% year over year compared to the same point in 2023.

“This is incredibly encouraging to see, and share, as our growth figures clearly indicate that there is a seismic industry shift underway,” VideoAmp chief commercial and growth officer Pete Bradbury said. “Advanced media measurement is here, and it’s here to stay. Our mission is to help clients plan, deliver and ultimately drive better outcomes, and we’re making good on that promise.”

The company said the gains were coming as more ad buyers and advertisers invest in data-driven, audience-based campaigns and use measurement from companies other than Nielsen.

“As an early adopter of big data, VideoAmp has made profound contributions to currency innovation, aiming to right-size the industry’s measurement capabilities to reflect total video viewership and support audience planning and buying,“ Omnicom Media Group North America chief investment officer Geoffery Calabrese said. “We applaud VideoAmp’s efforts to foster healthy competition in our marketplace and for enabling our clients to transact and measure against the audiences and KPIs that matter most to them.” 

In addition to OMG, VideoAmp said it works with buyers and sellers including A+E Networks, Allen Media Group, IPG Mediabrands, NBCUniversal, Paramount, RPA and Warner Bros. Discovery.

“At Warner Bros. Discovery, we’re committed to providing unmatched value to our clients with innovative solutions that drive exceptional results,” said David Porter, head of ad sales research, data and Insights at Warner Bros. Discovery. “Integrating VideoAmp’s state-of-the-art measurement tools into our Olli platform has delivered extraordinary levels of growth, efficiency and execution to our partners’ cross-platform Data-Driven Video campaigns across WBD’s iconic portfolio of brands and programming.”

VideoAmp added that its work with OpenAP has expanded the overall market for advanced audience campaigns.

VideoAmp said it made a deal enabling the measurement company to integrate Snap’s first-party data, video and augmented-reality ad inventory into VideoAmp’s cross-platform campaign planning system.

The collaboration with Snap will enable VideoAmp clients to make strategic budget allocations and to efficiently reach audiences across linear TV, streaming and digital platforms, VideoAmp said.

“This should be seen as a game-changing moment for the industry and cross-platform planning,” VideoAmp chief commercial and growth officer Pete Bradbury said. 

“We have the opportunity to meet consumers at every touchpoint and enrich the planning process by offering a more holistic solution across premium video and digital platforms,” Bradbury said. “Now, clients can have the insights they need to more effectively allocate their budgets to reach their target audiences and achieve stronger, better business outcomes. And that’s exciting.”

Ad buyer Omnicom Media Group has already tested the addition of Snap’s data to the VideoAmp platform.

“How consumers engage with TV and video content is more fluid and diverse than ever as they traverse a rich media ecosystem, whether linear TV, streaming environments like CTV, social platforms like Snap or all of the above,” Megan Pagliuca, chief activation officer at OMG, said. “What matters to us is understanding these complex consumption dynamics and reacting with smart decisions. Gaining visibility into Snap’s in-platform video consumption strongly supports our mission of holistic cross-channel video planning.”

VideoAmp said that the combination also benefits Snap, particularly as the adoption of augmented reality grows. 

"At Snap, we help advertisers reach more than 800 million people on Snapchat every month and we’re excited to maximize the impact of their video campaigns with a comprehensive suite of video-planning tools,” Alexander Dao, global head of agency development and sales partnerships at Snap, said. “VideoAmp’s planner is already familiar to many agencies and gives us an opportunity to provide advertisers with more choices to plan and measure across our video and first-to-market AR formats.”

Great American Media said it reached an agreement with VideoAmp that will enable clients to use VideoAmp’s ad buying measurement and data capabilities when transacting on Great American Family’s linear channels, Great American Family and Great American Faith & Living.

Going into the upfront, Great American Media CEO Bill Abbott told Broadcasting+Cable that ViedoAmp does a better job measuring emerging networks like Great American Family than Nielsen and that even Nielsen’s big-data methodology underweights some of the distributors that carry Great American Family in smaller counties.

“VideoAmp has worked hard to deliver big data measurement capabilities that show the value we deliver to advertisers and enable us to report on how our channels target and optimize consumers engaging with our brand,” Abbott said in a statement. “As advertisers make Christmas buying decisions, they can do so with confidence knowing the industry has a solution that accurately measures linear TV audiences.”

Last year, Allen Media Group conducted its upfront with VideoAmp as its primary currency. In April, the U.S. Joint Industry Committee on measurement certified that VideoAmp was ready to use for transactions. Major media companies including Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery have also been using VideoAmp for some ad transactions.

“We are grateful to have a more compelling option like VideoAmp in the marketplace. I applaud the work of the VAB, who under Sean Cunningham’s leadership, have been at the forefront of demanding accountability in data analytics,” Abbott said. 

VideoAmp said that adoption of its measurement and currency product has been increasing, 11 agency group and more than 1,000 advertises now working with it, in addition to the vast majority of media companies.

“We are thrilled to partner with Great American Media to deliver advanced currency and measurement capabilities on behalf of their business as we approach this year's Upfront,” said Bryan Goski, senior VP, sell side revenue at VideoAmp. “By leading with a big data approach, together we can demonstrate the power and unique nature of Great American Media’s audiences to our mutual advertisers and agency partners. The industry has asked for a better measurement solution, and we are happy to lead the way in partnership with Great American Media.” 

The U.S. Joint Industry Committee on TV measurement certified Comscore and VideoAmp as ready to be used as currencies when buying or selling national advertising.

The JIC has previously given VideoAmp and Comscore conditional certification as being currency grade.

The certification follows what the JIC calls a rigorous evaluation. During the Data Evaluation phase, JIC members conducted more than 670 tests to ensure the data produced was transactable across specific currency use cases.

The JIC has also published Guidelines for Transactability to give the industry more information on how new currencies can be used.

Last week, Comscore received accreditation from the Media Rating Council for its household level measurement of national and local audiences. 

"Endorsements by both the MRC and the JIC underscores Comscore's adherence to rigorous standards of data integrity and precision. It offers broadcasters, advertisers, and media buyers a robust, validated tool for gauging audience engagement and media consumption," said Steve Bagdasarian, Chief Commercial Officer at Comscore.

"In an age when the planning and optimization of cross-platform campaigns is mission-critical, the JIC's certification of Comscore not only enhances its credibility but also reinforces the trust that industry stakeholders place in its metrics, setting a new benchmark for transparency and accountability in media measurement." Bagdasarian said. 

The MRC and JIC have reached an accord on how JIC certification and MRC accreditation will offer coordinated by different assurances to media buyers and sellers.

Comscore and VideoAmp compete with Nielsen, the long-time leader in TV audience measurement. Nielsen said Tuesday it will make its panel plus big data ratings system its primary currency going into the 2024-25 upfronts.  Nielsen is waiting for accreditation for adding big data to its diary based ratings system. It declined to participate in the JIC’s certification process.

Another Nielsen rival, iSpot, received conditional certification from the JIC last year. It remains conditionally certified, but the JIC says iSpot’s data submission was incomplete as iSpot makes changes to its methodology. A decision on certification is expected to be made in June.

Formed early last year by media seller, the JIC was been able to in short order getting buyers and measurement companies to buy in and define the type of measurement it needs and what it requires of measurement providers at a time when consumer habits are changing and video content is available on a growing number of platforms.

“While the currencies and resulting deal structures are decided solely between buyers and sellers, we cannot drive lasting transformation of the industry individually – we need consensus, compromise, and a shared understanding across all parties to move this industry forward,” said Travis Scoles, senior VP of advanced advertising at Paramount Global and chairman of the U.S. Joint Industry Committee’s board of directors.

“The collaboration over the last year to bring buyers and sellers to the same table to work in partnership with the measurement companies, who have dedicated an incredible amount of time, energy and resources to this process, is a testament to this industry’s dedication to progress as we build a more sustainable measurement ecosystem for the future. We applaud the work of all measurement companies and encourage continued innovation as we scale,” Scoles said.

The JIC said that certification is granted on a two year term. The first term ends December 2025.

A mid-term audit will be conducted to ensure the JIC has transparency on any changes to methodology. The audit will take place in November of each year, with the first cycle being held in November 2024, for any new currency of record data.

VideoAmp plans to supplement its pitch about how its data is being adopted as currency with testimonials from buyers, sellers and advertisers about how using advanced metrics has made their campaigns more effective.

One of the companies challenging Nielsen’s dominance in TV ratings, VideoAmp is holding a VampFront event Tuesday ahead of the upfronts–an unusual move for a measurement company.

“We play such a large role in the upfront,” Peter Bradbury, VideoAmp’s chief commercial officer, told Broadcasting+Cable.

“We’ve never gotten all of the interested parties together and shared where we’re at, how we can enable them and share successes,” he said. “We at VideoAmp are very very aggressively trying to make the case to the industry empirically that there's a better way to transact.”

Bradbury, who spent more than two decades with Nielsen before joining VideoAmp in January, said the company is inviting high-level executives from the buy side, the sell side and industry groups to its event.

After VideoAmp execs lay out their vision of where the industry is heading, “we’re very quickly handing it off to our clients,” Bradbury said. “We’re very fortunate that we had a large group of clients jump at the opportunity to stand up and share their message about the progress they’ve made in their own shops in large part through the work they’ve been doing with us evolving their measurement and currency.”

A big part of VideoAmp’s message is that better measurement and advanced currencies aren’t part of the future, but a reality today.

“There are a lot of deals that are being done, north of a billion dollars in deals have been conducted on VideoAmp alone, not to mention the other more targeted currencies,” Bradbury said.

Other data points VideoAmp will present includes the assertion it is on track to have more than $1 billion in deal guaranteed by VideoAmp currency in 2024.

The company said it has 1,400% year-over-year growth in adoption for its measurement and currency solutions, and that it is doing business with 98% of publishers, 11 agency groups and more than 1,000 advertisers.

Campaigns guaranteed on advanced audiences with VideoAmp have generated an 11% increase in total conversions, based on VideoAmp Outcome Reports commissioned by Paramount for 13 Vantage data driven linear campaigns guaranteed on VideoAmp currencies in 2022 and 2023.

Guest speakers appearing in person at the VampFront are expected to include Katie Haniffy, head of media for PepsiCo Beverages, Fox Chief Advertising Research and Analytics Officer Mainak Mazumdar (another former Nielsen exec), and Maureen Bossetti, chief investment officer at IPG’s MediaBrands. 

Speaking on tape will be clients from companies including Luxottica, OMG, Dentsu, Horizon Media, Paramount Advertising, Warner Bros. Discovery, TelevisaUnivision, NBCUniversal and Allen Media Group.

“I've been in the business almost 30 years and I can tell you when clients want to say nice things about you to other clients, it's a privileged position,” said Bradbury.

The event will primarily be a business meeting, though there will be some time for socializing afterwards.

“We're going to be low on shrimp, big on information and insights,” he said, countering VideoAmp's reputation for lavishly entertaining clients.

VideoAmp’s meeting comes a week after the American Association of Advertising Agencies put out a report questioning whether alternative currencies were “ready for prime time.”

Bradbury said that the study was already out of date, because it used data from 2022.

“I got calls from maybe 15 clients on both buy and sell side all with very similar messages,” he said. 

“The takeaway was: ‘hey, you know what people. we’re actually smart enough to chew gum and walk at the same time,’” Bradbury said. 

“And this idea that we should again delay using information that helps us to be more efficient and drive more profitability for our clients and ourselves, it's just crazy. It's antiquated and it clearly is clinging to some historical way of doing business,” he added. “I'm sure that their heart was in the right place. I'm sure they felt like they were being helpful to someone.”

Earlier this year VideoAmp restructured its management, bringing in Bradbury, and cutting headcount by 20%.

The company had hired people for some new businesses, that either didn’t work or weren’t core to what VideoAmp was doing. Now the company is “all systems go and focused on the future,” Bradbury said. “Our clients are asking us to do more. In fact they're kind of aggressively asking us to do more in a lot of areas.”

VideoAmp has been criticized for having an activation business, because some believe one company shouldn’t both be playing the game by buying media and keeping score by measuring reach and results.

Bradbury said VideoAmp will be focusing on currency measures.

“The industry has told us that’s where we can bring the most value,” he said. “That said, we do have clients to count on us for activation and we're committed to at some point a peaceful transition of power.” Until then, VideoAmp will continue to take care of its activation clients.

Nielsen bashing is a favorite hobby of people in the TV business. Will Bradbury be dunking on his old employer?

“No. Zero from us for sure, he said.  “Our North Star is buy side and the sell side of the industry and what helps them drive their business.  We have respect for folks who came before us and we will have respect for folks who come after us.”

VideoAmp, one of the media measurement companies looking to challenge Nielsen, introduce VALID, its system that uses advanced currencies to help advertisers more precisely target audience.

VALID stands for VideoAmp Linked Identity & Data. It combines VideoAmp’sTV viewership data, which is based on big data from set-top boxes and smart TVs in 39 million households, with a commingled identity graph and patented clean room technology, which allows the data to be securely shared with clients.

The new product emerges two months after VideoAmp’s CEO Ross McCray stepped down and the company disclosed laying off 20% of its staff.

“In today’s advertising landscape, where the demise of cookies, the shift to on-demand streaming, and privacy regulations create challenges, VALID enables deduplicated cross-platform measurement in a secure way,” said Josh Hudgins, Chief Product Officer at VideoAmp. “The VALID identity graph, coupled with our clean room technology, connect disparate online and offline datasets giving advertisers a full picture of how their campaigns drive outcomes in the real world.”

Also Read: VideoAmp Navigates Mediaocean in Currency Test With Paramount, OMG

According to a video produced by the company, $130 billion worth of advertising spending is wasted because of inaccurate targeting.

A number of major media companies are working with VideoAmp and using its advanced currencies for selling advertising. Instead of being based on broad demographics, such as age and sex, advanced demographics target and measure car buyers, outdoor enthusiasts, sports fans and other groups likely to buy a product.

“We are thrilled to work with VideoAmp for Advanced Currency and Measurement, bringing further attention to the need for accurate representation of Hispanic audiences,” said Brian Lin, senior VP of product management at TelevisaUnivision. “We are focused on helping advertisers reach more of the right people at the right frequency across screens, and we’re excited to work with VideoAmp to bring this vision to life in 2024 and beyond.”

VideoAmp, the video measurement startup that has been competing with Nielsen and others to serve the multibillion-dollar TV ad market, parted ways with its founder and CEO Ross McCray, while quietly laying off 20% of its workforce.

Peter Liguori, former CEO of Tribune Media and former chairman of Fox Entertainment, will take on the role of executive chairman. 

McCray, who led VideoAmp in striking deals with Paramount Global, Warner Bros. Discovery and other media companies, will remain a shareholder and remain on VideoAmp’s board. 

“This was an extremely hard and emotional decision for me,” McCray said in a statement. “I always knew after starting VideoAmp — if we were successful — this day would come. I have wished and dreaded for this day to come for 10 years. But it is time for me to pass the baton and return back to my original love and roots of earlier stage company building … I look forward to working with you all in this new way.”

Meanwhile Peter Bradbury, a former Nielsen executive, will take on the role of chief commercial and growth officer.

“VideoAmp is now the well-established leader in modern media measurement, currency and optimization,” reads McCray’s statement. “Our company has grown up and is now entering a new phase of scale, maturity and operations. With deep contemplation and mindfulness, I believe this milestone also marks the natural time to transition from a founder-led company to a world-class company that can thrive for over 100 years without a reliance on its founder.”

VideoAmp has managed to grab market share since it was founded in 2014, contending with competitors Nielsen and iSpot, as media measurement data become increasingly valuable as a tool to help guide decision-making amid increasingly fragmented audiences. 

Nielsen has maintained historical market dominance because of its neutrality in data collection. But with many TV providers choosing to move away from established metrics, there’s space for competitors to move in, especially as the industry continues to make the complex shift from linear television to streaming.

Hallmark Media said that it will use VideoAmp as a currency for transacting advertising sales, further chipping away at Nielsen’s role as the standard upon which audience guarantees are based.

Hallmark will use VideoAmp’s estimates, based on big data from cable set-top boxes and smart TV sets, to guarantee the delivery of viewers within traditional demographics and advanced audiences.

“We’re proud to work with VideoAmp to provide their advanced measurement to our clients and further solidify our commitment to advanced advertising solutions,” Casey Gould, senior VP, ad sales and advanced advertising at Hallmark Media, said. “As we head into the launch of our highly anticipated holiday season, this partnership will offer our advertisers new, rewarding data findings that showcase the value of advertising within our unique brand of feel-good content and reinforce our presence as a leading destination in the cable landscape.”

Also Read: Weather Channel Does Upfront Ad Deals Using VideoAmp as Currency

VideoAmp is one of a number of Big Data-based measurement companies offering media companies and ad buyers an alternative to Nielsen. 

Hallmark said it continues to work with Nielsen and plans to expand its current and future relationships in the measurement space.

VideoAmp, along with iSpot.TV and Comscore, received conditional certification to be used as ad currencies by the Joint Industry Committee established by programmers to standardize and update audience measurement .

VideoAmp data has previously been adopted as currency by media companies including Paramount Global and media buyers including Dentsu.

”We are thrilled to be working with Hallmark Media and to provide them with our advanced currency solution,” Ross McCray, founder and CEO of VideoAmp, said. “Our solution will enable Hallmark Media to further maximize the value of their inventory while providing their own clients with the insights and opportunities to optimize that benefit their bottom lines most effectively.”

According to VideoAmp data, Hallmark Channel is a top entertainment channel during the holidays for advertisers. Excluding broadcast, news, sports and kids networks, Hallmark was No. 1 in the fourth quarter of 2022 among households, adults 18-49, adults 25-54, women 18-49 and women 25-54.

The Weather Channel Television Network, part of Allen Media Group, said that it transacted its upfront deals using VideoAmp as its primary currency.

VideoAmp is one of several big-data based measurement companies challenging Nielsen's dominance in the TV audience business.

“The Weather Channel is very proud to be the first network to transition to VideoAmp, proving that reliable big data measurement is the future of the television industry,” Byron Allen, founder/chairman/CEO of Allen Media Group, said. “We made the move at the start of the Upfronts because our clients deserve much stronger data. VideoAmp allows us to better serve our clients by showing the efficacy and return on investment our audiences and content deliver.”

Allen announced that his company had retained VideoAmp to handle TV measurement at its upfront in April, remarking that “Nielsen does a horrible job.” 

Allen has sued Nielsen for fraud, alleging that Nielsen measurement failure cost his company money.

Allen Media Group signed a 10-year deal with VideoAmp in June making VideoAmp its primary and preferred advertising currency.

“Allen Media Group is making bold decisions to push the industry towards smarter and more sophisticated ways of measuring viewers. The Weather Channel moving its entire Upfront to VideoAmp currency is a massive testament to their commitment to increasing the value of media for their advertiser clients and viewers,” VideoAmp founder and CEO Ross McCray said.

Also Read: Dentsu Uses VideoAmp As Currency in Multi-Network Ad Campaign

“At Horizon we are always focused on innovation and improving our clients’ impact against their advertising commitments. We fully support The Weather Channel’s move to VideoAmp as their primary currency and being able to demonstrate to our clients the improvement of measurement and efficacy against their media campaigns,” David Campanelli, executive VP and chief investment officer of Horizon Media, said.

In another milestone towards an alternative to Nielsen that can be used by media buyers and advertisers, Dentsu said that it has executed a campaign across multiple programmers based on audience guaranteed using VideoAmp as currency.

The programmers involved in the buy included Paramount, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery, A+E Networks, Hallmark Media and NBCUniversal.

Dentsu and VideoAmp did not disclose the name of the advertiser.

The buy was made through Dentsu’s Data Enabled Linear TV Activation (DELTA) platform.

Also Read: VideoAmp Navigates Mediaocean in Currency Test With Paramount, OMG

“As we look to the future of seamless video investment for our clients, this innovative partnership represents a positive shift in the marketplace, enabling advertisers to more effectively reach more valuable audiences in premium placements,” Dentsu Media U.S. senior VP, Video Innovation Brad Stockton said. “This is our latest effort to drive adoption of alternative currencies as we seek to build out a unified investment approach rooted in the same source of truth through DELTA.”

DELTA uses VideoAmp for planning, measurement, and access to currency-grade data and insights in order to optimize media spending and reach an advertiser’s target audience across premium publishers. 

“The growth that we’ve been able to achieve since we first engaged with Dentsu on currency in 2021 is incredible,” VideoAmp founder and CEO Ross McCray said. “Moving past testing to this kind of scale is a testament to the DELTA team and their commitment to providing clients with the benefits of using an advanced currency. This is just the start and we look forward to collectively helping advertisers make their media investments work harder and smarter to achieve the business outcomes that matter most to them.”

Media companies including Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery and NBCUniversal have been pushing to use multiple currencies for selling commercial inventory.

“This latest partnership between Dentsu and VideoAmp marks an exciting step forward for our industry in enabling advertisers to transact against advanced audiences at scale, an approach we fully embrace at Warner Bros. Discovery,” WBD executive VP, ad sales Marybeth Strobel said. “By leveraging these innovative solutions in audience-based buying, advertisers can better leverage Warner Bros. Discovery’s suite of premium IP, brands, franchises and coveted audiences and ensure the impact of their investment is more fully captured.”

Nielsen challengers Comscore, iSpot and VideoAmp were granted conditional certification as currency for buying and selling advertising by the U.S. Joint Industry Committee (JIC) set up by media companies to set modern standards for audience measurement in a multiplatform environment.

The conditional certification means the three companies were judged to be transactable in the first part of the JIC’s analysis.

The certification might give the executives who oversee measurement decisions another reason to hire one of Nielsen’s rivals,  setting up a future in which buyers and sellers can choose from multiple ad currencies when transacting.

Nielsen was invited but declined to participate in the JIC’s certification process, which is being managed by OpenAP, the advanced advertising company owned by several major media companies. including NBCUniversal and Paramount Global.

Also Read: Nielsen Names Measurement Head Karthik Rao as New CEO

Some media companies, including NBCU, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, are already using alternate currency providers for some deals.

Nielsen and its competitors are increasingly using big data from set-top boxes and smart TV sets to measure viewing. The methodologies for using big data–including Nielsen’s–have not been accredited by the Media Rating Council, which provides the seal of approval to TV measurement systems.

Also Read: Nielsen Tackled, Won’t Use Amazon Data In ‘Thursday Night Football’ Ratings, but It’s Only First Down

“We support the JIC because it will bring increased transparency, innovation and competition in the currency marketplace — it’s part of our investment in audience and outcome measurement as well as the development of the cross-platform currency of the future that includes all streaming platforms and services,” iSpot CEO Sean Muller said.

‘We are pleased to be granted conditional certification for Cross-platform Currency by the U.S. JIC,“ Comscore said in a statement. “This is affirmation of our methodology and big data approach, which already serves as currency for a multitude of local and national clients, including JIC members. 

“As the only provider under consideration by the US JIC who is also currently undergoing MRC accreditation for audience measurement, Comscore looks forward to continuing along in the certification process,” Comscore added. “We congratulate the members of the U.S. JIC for their efforts towards transparency and the establishment of measurement standards. With today’s announcement, we invite brands and agencies to come test, learn and discover Comscore’s cross-platform capabilities.”

The JIC expects to award full certification in early 2024. To achieve full certification, companies have to pass a data evaluation. With full certification, measurement companies will have access to the JIC Streaming Data Service that will launch next year made up of first-party data from the media companies.

Also Read: Joint Industry Committee Reveals How It Will Grade Measurement Companies Seeking Certification

Another company in the measurement business, Innovid, said it was not pursuing a currency strategy and wasn’t expecting to be among those certified.

“Our platform, InnovidXP, is used today by brands and agencies to gauge converged TV performance against unique business goals, and by publishers to prove the value of their investments and inventory,” Dave Helmreich, chief commercial officer at Innovid, said. “We currently enable brands like GM, Verizon, and P&G and platforms like Disney, Comcast, NBCU, Roku, Tegna and Tubi to deliver better TV advertising experiences that consumers love.

“We are currently in CEO-level conversations with OpenAP/JIC about a possible non-currency related partnership and will share more when the time is right,” he added.

The JIC was set up in January with NBCU, Paramount, Fox Corp., WBD and TelevisaUnivision on board.

Media buying agencies were later invited to serve on the JIC’s committees, including the ones defining standards and voting on certifications.

Other traditional media companies later joined, as well as Roku. Key companies that are not part of the JIC include The Walt Disney Co., YouTube, Netflix and Amazon.

The JIC’s initial charter was to create a certification process for new currencies and  a streaming viewership dataset through OpenAP.

“We applaud the efforts of all companies who leaned in with the JIC’s currency certification efforts and participated in the RFI stage,” the JIC said in a statement.

“Throughout the process thus far, it is clear that — while there is still work to be done — we are moving closer to having more currencies that are commercially ready for scalable transactions across both buyers and sellers,“ the JIC said. “We look forward to continuing to work with the companies in both the next stage of the currency data-evaluation process, as well as with those who will be partnering on measurement certification next year, as we thoughtfully and collaboratively work toward ushering the industry toward a modern measurement and currency ecosystem.” 

In a key step towards the TV industry's goal of having multiple currencies from multiple providers, Mediaocean is making audience data from VideoAmp available to media buyers using its platform under a pilot program with Paramount Global and Omnicom Media Group.

Nearly all media buying agencies use Mediaocean’s system to plan, buy and track campaigns. For decades, its system was designed to use data from Nielsen, until recently the only viewing data used as currency for buying and selling commercials.

Media sellers and buyers have been clamoring to make deals based on advanced audiences and big data provided by companies like VideoAmp, Comscore and iSpot, but until that data was available as part of the workflow for buyers using Mediaocean were familiar with, using alternative currencies was a burdensome process that limited their adoption.

“This is the final domino to fall,” Travis Scoles, senior VP, advanced advertising at Paramount, told Broadcasting+Cable. 

Paramount has been a pioneer in advanced data-based advertising and has been pushing to have advertisers and agencies use currencies from VideoAmp, iSpot and Comscore to buy and evaluate campaigns.

“The definition of currency is transactional,“ he said. “If you’re not transacting against it, it's not actually a currency, So the number one thing that's important is that it works within our transactional systems.”

Currently, using alternative currencies requires manual data entry and assigning someone to review spreadsheets to track that campaigns are delivering the impressions expected.

“There are a lot of reasons to think that this will continue to accelerate the application of audience data because it’s removing friction from all of these processes,” Scoles said.

Scoles said he expected Mediaocean to also support the use of currencies from Comscore and iSpot as part of the workflow media buyers are familiar with while using the Mediaocean platform.

Adapting its system to be able to handle multiple currencies was a difficult and expensive technical challenge.

“We are investing significantly to support the future of measurement in a converged TV world, and are very happy to support OMG and Paramount in making this a scalable reality,” Mediaocean chief development officer Ramsey McGrory said. “Advanced currencies offer data-driven solutions that allow advertisers and agencies to reach their target audiences more effectively.”

It was unclear if currency providers, starting with VideoAmp, were helping Mediaocean pay the costs for adapting its system.

Josh Hudgins, executive VP of product at VideoAmp declined to discuss financial arrangements with Mediaocean.

“I think for Mediaocean, its a question of incentives. When we started on this process, I don’t think the incentives were there for them to do a lot of work on our behalf,” Hudgins said.

“But as we gained traction and momentum and pressure from the industry — particularly from the buy side — it became apparent there was demand. It made more and more sense for them to supply that capability in their products,” he said.

“We figured out pretty early on that to get any sort of traction you have to some extent accommodate the existing ecosystems,” Hudgins said. “What we heard particularly from the demand side was that you had to work with Mediaocean or scaling as a currency was going to be very, very difficult, so we started a process a long time ago with Mediaocean to get this built and it required us to make significant technical investment in order to make it work.”

The audience information from VideoAmp and other newer, big-data-based measurement providers is very different and much more granular than Nielsen’s, focusing on the viewership of individual commercials on a second-by-second basis, raising questions about how robust and useful the VideoAmp data will be within the Mediaocean platform.

“Mediaocean has a different set of capabilities than the VideoAmp platform would have. They use the data in a way that makes sense for their users,” Hudgins said.

“We worked really hard with them to build out the ability to do advanced audiences in Mediaocean using audiences from VideoAmp, as opposed to just demo-based audiences,” he added. “The platform has been expanded to accommodate that use case, which was really important to us and to our clients. A large part of the value proposition here is to be able to measure these custom first-party audiences based on our data.”

The pilot program headed by Paramount and OMG will initially focus on buys based on advanced audiences, such as people in the market for a new car, or high-income families looking to buy insurance, which is a very different proposition than the traditional approach that looks at age and sex viewer demographics.

Paramount’s Scoles said that the pilot program with Omnicom Media Group focuses initially on advanced audiences because it's the most different from using traditional Nielsen data and will test Mediaocean’s system.

“We're seeing more and more demand for audience-based advertising,” he said.

Scoles said that with this pilot program underway, a standard way of doing business count be in place as early as the fourth quarter.

“We don't have to wait another year to figure out the ad-ops portion of this. It's knocking at the door, he said.

Making better data available will be good for Paramount, he said. “We welcome transparency and measurement if we think it'll only show us in a good light.”

Scoles said that with Mediaocean accommodating competition, Paramount will be able to pursue more innovative deal structures while agencies utilize existing processes.

“Validating the key operational pieces within Mediaocean to be transaction ready on new currencies, including custom audiences at scale, was key,“ Geoffrey Calabrese, chief investment officer, Omnicom Media Group North America, said. “The Paramount team worked diligently on behalf of the entire industry to test and enable an end-to-end workflow with Mediaocean, and it has proven successful. Leveraging this outstanding work across partners and ingesting it into the unique workflows we have with them is the next step in this journey, and we’re eager to lean in on it.”

Relo Metrics said it will integrate VideoAmp’s viewing data into the Relo Metrics sponsorship analytics platform.

Relo Metric said it works with about 55% of top-tier sports leagues including MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL and MLS. The platform uses artificial intelligence to enable real-time decision-making by detecting logos on player uniforms, benches, signage and other on-field locations.

"We're creating a new measure  of value based on highly accurate content viewing metrics along with demographic attributes allowing us to present exposure value in terms of impressions, which is critical as the viewership continues to grow while fragmenting," said Jay Prasad, CEO at Relo Metrics. "Being able to now value exposure in terms of household impressions is critical for accurate measurement. Lastly, this integration for the first time will allow the market to understand the total reach of live sponsorships alongside advertising in sports, this will be a big unlock of value for years to come.  

VideoAmp commingling methodology joins various data inputs like set-top box data (STB) with  smart TV data from ACR providers. The integration with Relo Metrics further propels the entire industry towards a more accurate understanding of advertising spend and performance. 

“Sporting events have long captivated mass audience viewership and it’s become increasingly clear that accurate representation of viewership is critically important. We’re thrilled to be working with Relo Metrics in a way that gives brands and advertisers a clearer understanding of what their exposure looked like for a given event and what the value of that exposure was. We look forward to further developing this relationship and creating even more value for all parties in the advertising ecosystem,” said Michael Parkes, President at VideoAmp. 

VideoAmp said it expanded its integration with Meta to include measuring the incremental lift generated by TV tune-in campaigns on Facebook and Instagram.

The analytics use randomized controlled trials to determine conversion lift and may be used to help clients optimize across Meta properties alongside promotional efforts on linear TV, streaming and other digital media.

Meta’s RCT tests are designed to establish true causality by controlling for outside variables and ensuring that users within the advertiser’s target audience are randomly assigned to test and control groups, where only the test group is eligible to receive an ad. 

“We are thrilled to announce the expansion of our integration with Meta,“ VideoAMp senior VP, solutions specialist JP Pereira said. “Entertainment brands spend a lot of money trying to drive viewership of their content and we are happy to bring them a closed-loop solution that enables them to more accurately measure the incremental impact of their investments on Meta properties. With this integration, and the use of Meta’s Conversion Lift Study, VideoAmp clients will be able to better understand the causal impact of an ad.” 

In addition to tune-in lift, VideoAmp lift studies provide insights into cost per incremental tune-in and tune-in lift by audience segment.

Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group said it agreed to a 10-year deal making VideoAmp its primary and preferred advertising currency, effective immediately.

Allen had announced at the company's upfront presentation in April that this company would be using VideoAmp as currency in the upfronts, beginning with The Weather Channel.

Allen has sued Nielsen for fraud, alleging that Nielsen measurement failure cost his company money.

The length of the deal with VideoAmp — one of several new companies using big data from set-top boxes and smart TVs to challenge Nielsen, which has dominated the TV measurement world for decades — makes it very unusual.

“What’s unique about this deal is Allen Media Group is the first to say VideoAmp is the primary currency, not the alternative,“ VideoAmp founder and CEO Ross McCray said. “It’s a huge step forward for the entire industry as we are making measurement more accurate and equitable for everyone.” 

VideoAmp’s big dataset incorporates 39 million households and multiple data sources, providing more accurate, representative and effective ways of measuring an advertiser’s media spend across screens, the company said.

“Reliable big data measurement is much needed and will save the industry,“ Byron Allen, founder, chairman and CEO of Allen Media Group, said. “This is something we have been waiting on for a long time — a company to come along and break the mold, to take us to the next level and to measure our channels properly. For Allen Media Group, that solution is VideoAmp.”

Allen and McCray announced the deal at the VideoAmp Summit, taking place in Cannes, France.

VideoAmp and TransUnion said they made a deal to add TransUnion’s TruAudience marketing analytics and attribution information to the VideoAmp viewership measurement platform.

The companies said the integration enables marketers to measure the impact of their campaign across TV and digital channels and connect media exposure to purchase behavior. The insights can be used to optimize spending and targeting.

"We're thrilled to be working with TransUnion to unlock value for advertisers. This integration will provide marketers with a holistic view of their advertising performance, enabling them to make data-driven decisions and optimizations that drive better outcomes that connect directly into their media plans. Together, we can help brands better understand the impact of their advertising efforts and optimize their campaigns for maximum effectiveness," Michael Parkes, president of VideoAmp.

The VideoAmp platform generates tactical recommendations for media plans that are optimized to achieve marketing goals throughout the campaign lifecycle, such as driving conversions or increasing brand awareness.

“The integration of VideoAmp linear data into our suite of powerful marketing attribution and investment optimization solutions will help marketers measure and improve the incremental impact across their media buying,” said Michael Schoen, executive VP of Marketing Solutions at TransUnion. “At TransUnion, we’re making marketing analytics and data science more accurate and actionable for marketers, and this partnership is a great addition to our unique combination of identity-based data and media-spanning integrations.” 

One client that has utilized the combined offering is the Papa Johns pizza chain.

“The integration between VideoAmp and TransUnion provides me and my team with a holistic understanding of Papa Johns consumers and the best ways to reach them. Having access to VideoAmp’s datafeeds not only bolsters our model, but we get a richer understanding of how our media is impacting the entire consumer journey. That ensures we don’t over or under-credit certain channels and that we make the smartest decisions possible with our media spend,” Chris Hawk, Director, Media Strategy & Investment Performance at Papa Johns.

Media agency Horizon Media said it will be using viewership data from VideoAmp as a currency for buying television advertising during the upfront market for some of its clients.

Horizon will also continue to use Nielsen in other upfront transactions.

VideoAmp is one of the measurement companies using big data from millions of homes to provide an alternative to Nielsen, which has long dominated the TV ratings business.

“It is extremely important to Horizon that we develop relationships in the currency and measurement space that we believe have scale and representation, drive innovation, and are transparent and collaborative with both buy and sell sides,” said Dave Campanelli, chief investment officer, Horizon Media.  “VideoAmp meets those needs for us, and we are thrilled to establish this deeper relationship as we build towards the future and drive better results and business outcomes on behalf of our clients.”

As part of its new agreement, Horizon will also be able to use VideoAmp for planning, analytics and measurement in order to drive better outcomes for clients.

A number of media companies have made deals to use VideoAmp data to either transact or measure. The list includes Paramount, NBCUniversal, TelevisaUnivision, Fox  Warner Bros. Discovery, Allen Media Group and The Walt Disney Co. 

Also Read: Paramount Sees Boost in Results From Campaigns Using VideoAmp Currency

Media companies can use alternative currencies if media buyers and their clients agree.

"We are excited to announce our work with a forward thinking, results-driven, and progressive agency like Horizon Media and its adoption of VideoAmp as a new currency for the coming Upfronts. We have a unique approach in that we not only provide more accurate and reliable measurement than the legacy panel-only currency, but also the tools to plan and optimize against that data throughout the campaign,” said Michael Parkes, president, VideoAmp. “This means that Horizon and its clients will be able to leverage big data as currency for more sophisticated transactions that have shown to increase advertiser return on investment. We look forward to helping Horizon and its clients achieve success.”

VideoAmp announced that it is able to measure audience reach and frequency for YouTube across connected TV, desktop and mobile devices.

VideoAmp said its new capability integrates YouTube into VideoAmp’s cross-platform measurement systems, enabling advertisers to measure their YouTube advertising and optimize campaigns.

YouTube used to rely on its own data to measure it

s advertising, but as it has attracted more money from television advertisers, it has engaged with third party measurement companies, notably Nielsen. 

iSpot.TV, which like VideoAmp, is offering an alternative to Nielsen, also announced that it was measuring YouTube and YouTube TV campaigns ahead of YouTube’s Brandcast presentation to advertisers on Wednesday of Upfront Week.

“We are excited to launch integration with Google’s Ads Data Hub for Measurement Partners, empowering advertisers to unlock the full potential of their media investments across YouTube, television, and digital platforms,” said Michael Parkes, President of VideoAmp. “Through this integration, we offer reach and frequency measurement insights to help advertisers deliver maximum value from their media spend across their largest media partners.”

Allen Media Group told advertisers at its upfront lunch on Wednesday in New York that it has retained VideoAmp to handle TV measurement.

“Nielsen does a horrible job,” said Allen Media Group founder and CEO Byron Allen. Allen has sued Nielsen for fraud, alleging that Nielsen measurement failure cost his company money.

“I’m not saying there shouldn’t be measurement. It has to be the right measurement,” Allen said.

VideoAmp is one of a number of tech-oriented companies offering an alternative to Nielsen. VideoAmp has deals with Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and Fox's Tubi streaming service to provide data that can be used as currency for buying and selling advertising. 

Allen Media Group will use VideoAmp data as currency first for The Weather Channel. VideoAmp data credits The Weather Channel with about 25% more viewers than Nielsen does, and more than double the nubmer of viewers 18 plus, the company said.

Allen noted that Nielsen’s measurement systems had been discredited by the Media Rating Council. The MRC suspended the accreditation of Nielsen’s national ratings service because it was unable to maintain its sample homes during the pandemic, resulting in viewing being undercounted. Earlier this month, the MRC restored its accreditation of Nielsen’s legacy national ratings service. Nielsen’s local ratings service remains unaccredited. 

VideoAmp said that in campaigns conducted with Paramount Global, advertisers got better results when using VideoAmp data as currency, compared to buying based on traditional demographic data.

VideoAmp, one of the measurement companies offering an alternative to Nielsen,  created reports highlighting the impact of those campaigns to showcase the benefits of big-data currencies.

The campaigns on average were 11% better at creating likelihood to convert. Compared to demo audiences, advanced audiences were 37% more likely to convert than demo audiences.

When bought using VideoAmp data, the campaign achieved 83% incremental lift from digital.

Also Read: VideoAmp Launches Ad Metrics on a Second-by-Second Basis

VideoAmp and Paramount have been working together for several years and more recently, Paramount said it would be using VideoAmp currency for some deals. The companies said they have executed more than 100 deals together.

The outcomes data is based on 12 campaigns that ran in 2022 that were guaranteed against VideoAmp currency in 2022.

The advertisers were in the auto, consumer packaged goods and quick-service restaurant categories. 

“Paramount has been strong proponents and implementors of new currencies, big data audiences and resulting optimization capabilities,” said Travis Scoles, senior VP, advanced advertising, Paramount. ”As demonstrated by VideoAmp’s results, we are able to capture a more comprehensive footprint of consumers to deliver accurate and impactful outcomes for our advertisers.”

Warner Bros. Discovery is starting the new year with a new ad currency.

The media giant has made a deal with VideoAmp, one of the measurement companies looking to provide an alternative to Nielsen.

The companies said Warner Bros. Discovery will use VideoAmp’s measurement and data capabilities to better represent its audiences for advertisers looking to transact on linear, streaming video and large digital and social media services through a unified cross-platform currency. 

Warner Bros. Discovery said it is moving towards scaled adoption of multiple currencies by the 2023 upfront.

“Traditional media measurement has not kept pace with how consumers are engaging with streaming and linear content. As a result, these audiences have been undercounted and current measures no longer accurately reflect their true advertising value,” said Andrea Zapata, executive VP, head of ad sales research, measurement and insights at Warner Bros. Discovery. “We are gaining momentum as we act on our goals to offer best in class measurement capabilities and provide greater visibility into the return on ad spend across our award-winning IP.”

In 2021, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav was among the more outspoken media company execs when it was found that Nielsen was undercounting viewership during the pandemic by the Media Rating Council, which suspended the accreditation of Nielsen’s national ratings service.

“I don’t have a lot of hope for Nielsen,” Zaslav said. “I think somehow as an industry we’re going to have to work our way out of it from a technology perspective and leave them in the dust because they just can’t get it together. It’s a shame.”

Nielsen is about to launch Nielsen One, its new approach to measuring multi-platform ad campaigns. Nielsen was acquired last year by private-equity investors and has reorganized following the departure of several senior executives.

Last year, WarnerMedia -- now part of Warner Bros. Discovery -- announced that it was testing alternative currencies from measurement companies including VideoAmp.

Based on its testing, Warner Bros. Discovery said that brands will benefit from VideoAmp’s cross-platform, advanced audience and outcome measurement. Those capabilities are underpinned by co-mingled viewing data from set-top boxes and smart TVs.

Warner Bros. Discovery said a recent media delivery analysis that leveraged VideoAmp data showed that brands that took advantage of advertising with Warner Bros. Discovery in October achieved, on average, a 1.2 times greater reach per spot within the Warner Bros. Discovery Prime portfolio. The differential was even greater among affluent audiences (2.3 time higher reach per spot in households with household income over $100K).

“The industry needs a better way to measure and transact on audiences–one that accounts for cross-platform, supports both traditional and advanced audiences and provides attribution metrics in a manner that enables media sellers and buyers to unlock this potential and excel in a competitive environment,” said Ross McCray, CEO and founder, VideoAmp. “We are excited Warner Bros. Discovery is creating a more sophisticated marketplace and we’re looking forward to unlocking value for them and the industry as a whole.”

This deal includes VideoAmp providing a full measurement suite to Warner Bros. Discovery across the company’s TV networks and streaming properties. Financial terms were not disclosed.

“The new data relationship between Warner Bros. Discovery and VideoAmp is a step forward in better third-party measurement for the industry. For Omnicom Media Group, it has the added benefit of aligning with our existing Omni Cross-Screen Insights capability and will help us close the loop for end-to-end planning through activation and measurement," said Ralph Pardo, CEO, Omnicom Media Group. ■

Disney Advertising said it is enabling advertisers to use viewing data from VideoAmp to measure cross-platform campaigns.

Using Disney’s clean-room technology, Disney’s Audience Graph, ad exposure logo files can be integrated with viewing data from VideoAmp to determine how precisely campaigns reached their key audiences. 

The first-of-its-kind integration will also help advertisers find the optimal reach and frequency across Disney properties while maintaining consumer privacy.

Disney and VidoAmp said they have begun brand test with media buyer Omnicom Media Group.

“As viewership rapidly shifts to streaming and connected TV, clients are looking for a holistic understanding of audience across all touchpoints, and identity interoperability will be critical to deliver brands a comprehensive and consistent understanding of audience,” Lisa Valentino, executive VP of Client Solutions and Addressable Enablement, Disney Advertising, said in a statement. “Clients want to know how their media investments translate into real results and performance, and options in measurement based on the unique needs of their business across all categories. Our new integration with VideoAmp marks material progress toward empowering marketers with innovative measurement validated by first-party data.”

VideoAmp is one of the companies offering media companies an alternative to Nielsen for measuring TV audiences. Disney has been selling linear ad campaigns using Nielsen data as currency, so the VideoAmp measurement is not yet being used to determine whether or not Disney delivered on audience guarantees.

"Omnicom Media Group has always been committed to interoperability within the video marketplace, and our collaboration with Disney and VideoAmp is a valuable example of how our commitment drives benefit for our clients,” said Geoffrey Calabrese, Chief Investment Officer, Omnicom Media Group North America.

“Through this integration, we can now match first party, second party and third party audiences in our Omni marketing orchestration system and measure delivery across platforms with industry-leading precision enabled by Disney’s privacy forward clean-room capabilities, giving OMG clients unprecedented visibility into the totality of their cross-platform video performance,” Calabrese said.

The clean-room integration will enable VideoAmp and Disney to offer data interoperability for measurement for joint clients, deliver an accurate view of advertising performance and uncover prescriptive insights across demos, advanced audiences and business outcomes, the companies said.

“Together, we are enabling advertisers to plan, measure and transact across high-value advanced or demographic audiences and measure the true impact of their investments by connecting media performance to real business outcomes, using VideoAmp data and measurement as currency,” VideoAmp president Michael Parkes said. ■

VideoAmp, one of the companies offering the TV business an alternative to Nielsen, released a new capability that provides measurement of second-by-second tad viewing, a level of detail that provides advertisers a better understanding of how their commercials perform.

The data from the second-by-second measurement can demonstrate how reach builds throughout a program and help advertisers and media companies optimize inventory based on exact commercial viewership. 

VideoAmp will be providing data on the viewing of each individual commercial. Nielsen’s current C3 metric measures the average commercial minute with a particular program.

Also: Tony Fagan Gets Expanded Role After VideoAmp Lays Off 10 in Reorganization

BET gave the new capability a test drive during the BET Awards. 

“Access to second-by-second level data gives BET a unique opportunity to hyper-target and pinpoint content that resonates with our audiences and drives success,“ Berj Kazanjian, senior VP of ad sales research at BET, said. “Our teams utilized this transformative data to identify the most compelling program elements, such as show performances, commercials, host presentations and more. These advanced metrics allow us to enhance our content, further our reach, and deepen our engagement with our community.”

VideoAmp’s viewership data is based on commingled information from smart TV and set-top boxes in 29 million homes. The company said its capability can give advertisers and media companies measurement of impressions, frequency, average commercial audience, average program audience, advertiser reach, incremental cumulative reach and total viewers.

“Having a true breakdown of viewership during every second of a program is game-changing,“ VideoAmp chief technology officer Tony Fagan said. “Average Commercial Minute is a compromise the industry has had to make, due to a lack of fidelity in panel-based measurement. Big Data enables buyers and sellers to know exactly how every spot in a program performs — from exact-second start to exact-second stop.

“Being able to tell a unique story for each advertiser during a program and make use of the granular insights that have often been lost or overlooked, is a major step forward,” he said. ■

VideoAmp, one of the companies aiming to provide the TV industry with an alternative to Nielsen, said it reorganized the company, giving CTO Tony Fagan additional responsibilities and resulting in about 10 staffers being laid off.

VideoAmp said the layoff accounted for about 2% of the company’s workforce, and said the move was made in order to stay ahead of shifts in technology and market trends. 

Fagan joined VideoAmp last year from Google, where he was VP of ads data science and engineering. He was hired by VideoAmp to accelerate and innovate the company’s planning, measurement and optimization efforts.

Also: Ad Industry Seeks Alternatives After Nielsen Loses Seal of Approval

Under the new structure, Fagan’s responsibilities will include the oversight and evolution of VideoAmp’s Product, Engineering and Research & Development departments.

“Tony has brought great leadership and technical acumen to VideoAmp and as we continue to grow and work alongside both media buyers and sellers to create solutions that they can leverage to drive positive business outcomes, his expanded role will help us drive operational excellence” said VideoAmp founder and CEO Ross McCray. “We think this expanded role positions VideoAmp for continued growth in order to successfully complete our mission to revolutionize how media is bought, sold and valued.”

Fagan will continue to report directly to McCray.

VideoAmp raised $275 million in Series F Funding last year and said it would use the money to accelerate the use of its measurement platform as currency for buying and selling advertising. Over the last year and a half, the company more than doubled the size of its staff and is still hiring for key positions.

The company has made deals to have its data tested as potential currency by media companies including Paramount Global, TelevisaUnivision, Discovery and WarnerMedia.

“I’m thrilled to take on more responsibility at a company that is literally reinventing measurement, as it should be, in order to help clients and the industry truly capitalize on growing consumer demand for video across platforms,” Fagan said. “Having our product, engineering and R&D teams work in synchronicity will help VideoAmp with speed and scale, but will also give us the focus we need to help drive this needed industry change. The time for a new currency is now.” ■

Videoamp said that its TV measurement data is being integrated into Mediaocean’s advertising platform.

The companies said the deal will enable buyers and sellers to make transactions using VideoAmp’s data as currency within the Mediaocean workflow buyers are accustomed to.

As TV becomes a more multi-screen, multi-platform environment, media companies and advertisers are looking for alternatives to Nielsen’s legacy ratings to use for media buying. VideoAmp is one of a number of big-data companies whose data is being either used or test for potential use as currency while Nielsen rolls out its new Nielsen One cross-platform system.

“We are thrilled to integrate VideoAmp currency into Mediaocean’s platforms as a way to give our clients the necessary data that they need to help drive efficiencies in an increasingly complex cross-platform marketplace,” said Ramsey McGrory, chief development officer, Mediaocean. “Offering the industry expanded provider choice for measurement currencies will give our clients an ability to drive the most informed decisions and will help Mediaocean continue to create an environment that is both holistic and equitable.”

The VideoAmp data is being integrated into Mediaocean’s Spectra and Prisma platforms.  ■

TelevisaUnivision said it made a deal to work with VideoAmp to measure Hispanic viewers and target them with advanced advertising capabilities.

VideoAmp data is being  connected with TelevisaUnivision’s Hispanic household graph, enabling advertisers to plan campaigns and transact with VideoAmp as currency.

The two companies worked together to ensure that Hisapnic viewers were being properly represented by VideoAmp’s big data based measurement system.

"Representation and accuracy are crucial in today’s data-driven media ecosystem, and in working closely with our team over the last several months, VideoAmp has made significant strides to ensure their dataset and methodologies precisely capture U.S. Hispanic audiences," said Dan Aversano, senior VP of data, analytics and advanced advertising at TelevisaUnivision.

Aversano said TelevisaUnivision was pleased with VideoAmp’s willingness to roll up its sleeves and work with TelevisaUnivision to assure it was being in class in terms of inclusivity.

“They really dug in. They put the time in. They put the investment in to ensure that the data was really accurate,” he said. "We're thrilled to expand our partnership with VideoAmp and deliver even more sophisticated targeting, optimization and cross-platform capabilities for our clients to engage with the Hispanic community."

VideoAmp is one of several measurement companies offering an alternative to Nielsen, particularly when it comes to cross-platform measurement. Several media companies are testing VideoAmp data for use as currency to make media buying transactions.

“This is an incredibly exciting partnership for us. Advertising subsidizes people’s access to information and entertainment so it’s important to ensure the three-way value exchange between advertisers, publishers and consumers works. A large part of getting this right is accurately measuring diverse audiences, especially Hispanics across the U.S. The marketplace is ready for change and we are excited for the opportunity to completely revolutionize the media landscape alongside partners like TelevisaUnivision,” said Michael Parkes, president of VideoAmp.  ■

Sell-side advertising platform Magnite said it has certified Comscore, iSpot.TV, Innovid and VideoAmp along with Nielsen as measurement systems that can be used as currency for programmatic buying of connected TV advertising inventory.

“CTV advertising operates on many different currencies today - from self-reported audience impressions to third-party outcome-based guarantees,” said Kristen Williams, senior VP, strategic partnerships at Magnite. 

“Magnite works with a variety of measurement and attribution experts to provide our clients with a range of solutions to transact. Without a standardized form of measurement at play," Williams said. "Magnite’s role as an independent technology platform is to enable easy activation of any measurement solution that brings greater transparency to TV transactions while building trust across our diverse client base.”

Most of the top media companies and the largest media buyers are at least testing how to use data other than Nielsen’s as currency for buying and selling advertising. During the upfront it appears most deals will still be done based on Nielsen, but going forward the industry is expected to accept multiple currencies for making transactions.

“GroupM is testing a number of different currency providers and it’s essential for these solutions to be embedded within existing workflows,” said Bharad Ramesh, executive director, research & investment analytics at GroupM. 

“Magnite’s integrations with a range of providers will help us remain flexible as we evaluate various measurement services for transactional use-cases. Our ability to plan, transact, and optimize interoperably will help us collaborate with supply partners more effectively and deliver better results for our clients,” Ramesh said.  ■

Recently, one of the old-school, panel-based currency providers has been suggesting that companies developing measurement solutions based on big data assets are somehow disadvantaged relative to panel companies in representing diverse audiences.

Not only is this untrue, but this sort of measurement fear mongering does the industry a disservice in the face of rapid tech advancements and consumer change. Progress isn’t owned by a single company and if the internet age has taught us anything is that innovation isn’t either. After all, it was the grandfather of modern computing Alan Turing who noted that “sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.” 

VideoAmp pioneered the integration of Smart TV ACR data and Set Top Box data into a single, commingled footprint. We use this footprint for measuring exposure to content and advertising across screens. This data has begun to be adopted by both buyers and sellers as currency data in the planning and buying of advertising. 

In regards to both cultural and operational values (i.e. how we live, and how we measure), at VideoAmp we take Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) very seriously. DEI is threaded through the way we behave as a company. And it is threaded through the ways in which we endeavor to measure and report on media audiences. So it is incumbent upon me to address this unfortunate characterization.

Let me start off by noting that in my first job, at Arbitron in the 1980s, I spent seven years responsible for maintaining the TV meter panels as demographically representative and fresh. Later, at Comscore, I oversaw the panel team for about a decade. So even though I work at a company that makes use of Big Data, I know a thing or two about the care and feeding of panels to ensure there is no bias.

First off, anyone in the media research space who thinks panels are immune to issues with minority representation must have a short memory. It’s difficult to forget the controversy that led to Don’t Count Us Out. Then, a few years later, there was this. In that latter article, the money quote for me was that “the radio listening habits of over four million ethnic minorities are represented by only 500 Arbitron recruits.” Which has been, for the most part, the primary reason panels have fallen from favor as the primary method for counting audiences.

In both these cases, the CEOs of the companies in question ended up having to testify in congress.

Beyond congressional inquiries underpinned by delicate panels, let’s look at the facts in context with the current and future state of consumerism.

We know that diverse populations are differentially represented in the big data TV assets companies like VideoAmp use to count audiences to content and campaigns. Part of the reason we use multiple data sources, and that we combine both Smart TV data and Set Top Box data, is to minimize these variances. According to CIMM, in a paper titled “Combining Set Top Box and Smart TV data,” authored by Janus Strategy & Insights and pre-meditated media, 88.4% of the U.S. population has either a Smart TV, a Set Top Box, or both. Now, that missing 11.6% may seem troubling, until we compare it to the typical response rates of a metered panel; anyone who tells you with a straight face that these exceed 20% is being disingenuous. But hell, let’s call it 40%. So panels systematically miss covering 60% of the population in their small samples, compared to the 11.6% missing from Smart TV and Set Top Box data in our tens-of-millions footprint.

But what about diverse segments?

Historically, when audience measurement purveyors think about demographic representation, we express it in terms of proportionality. A perfectly proportional representation is 100 (meaning, the percent of the demographic characteristic in your panel, and the percent in the universe, is the same). A proportionality index of 80 for Hispanics indicates that for every 100 Hispanics you should have in your sample, panel or footprint, you have 80. An index of 120 would mean that for every 100 Hispanics you should have, you have 120. In both cases, best practices would indicate weighting such that, post-weighting, both the overages and shortfalls are corrected for.

In a deck presenting the above findings, CIMM found that among Set Top Box (labeled “Pay TV”) universe, the proportionality of African-Americans was 95; of Hispanics, 87. Among the universe of Smart TV households, the proportionality of African-Americans was 96; of Hispanics, 113.

In all the years I spent managing panel demographic composition, I would have been thrilled with these proportionality indices. Any demographer would.

Now to be clear, the fact that some portion of the population has neither Smart TV nor Set Top Box is a coverage issue we take seriously, and that we correct for using weighting. However, we know that this 11.6% may well use TV differently than the portion of the population we do cover. It is worth noting, though, that a significant portion of that 11.6% slice are broadband-only (BBO) households. We don’t project linear tuning to BBO households; rather, we cover them via direct census measurement of streaming. And of course direct census measurement may be said to be bias-free.

Now, let’s turn to issues of minority representation with panels.

We know that all survey response rates have been dropping for years, and that panel response rates are chronically low; we know too, from issues with Nielsen during COVID, that TV meter panels may require in-home visits to be maintained, and that without these visits, panel composition decays. So low response rates (i.e. low population representation), coupled with issues around panel maintenance, raise some important questions. What portion of the population that is initially selected to be in the provider’s panel, ultimately ends up IN the panel? What demographic biases exist between installed households and refusal households? Do different ethnicities attrite from panels at different rates? What is the ethnic diversity of the recruitment staff? Are panel companies sending African-Americans into African-American neighborhoods? Chinese speakers into Chinese neighborhoods? And how differently is the use of television among the majority of the population that is not represented in panels, as opposed to that portion who are? These are some of the questions clients should be asking their panel providers.

Ultimately, both panel providers and Big Data providers are prone to the same issue – reporting household composition systematically differs from the universe by demographic, and by other characteristics. And both types of data providers account for variances in representation versus census in the same way – by weighting. And, both types of data providers remain subject to the biases that cannot be fixed by weighting – that is, the extent to which that portion of the population not covered, deviates from that portion covered, with respect to the relevant behavior. Weighting corrects for the number of African-Americans, for example; but not for any potential difference between the African-Americans you have under measurement and those not represented.

But because the portion of the population – both at large, and by race and ethnicity – is far better represented in big data assets than in panel responders, the potential magnitude of this error is in fact far greater in panels. And this is important, so let me state it again. Big Data assets represent a larger portion of the population than that represented by that unique sub-stratum of people who end up in panels. 

Truth Sets?

Finally, I’ve seen some posturing that panels are the ultimate truth set for how ethnic subgroups watch TV. This is false. Panels are not a solution or “truth set” to understand diverse audiences and technology. Audience measurement companies use census data and Universe Estimate studies to control both panels and Big Data assets (census for population, universe studies to understand how that population uses technology). At VideoAmp we use the CPS from the IU.S Census Bureau, which leverages surveys to update the decennial census in the years between fielding (most if not all companies in the measurement space use CPS). We also sponsored and have access to the Advertising Research Foundation’s DASH study, and we subscribe to the Kagan Media data, now under the auspices of S&P. Studies like these are then used as an input for correcting biases and shortfalls in both big data footprints AND panels. Panels are a beneficiary of universe “truth set” studies; not a source of them.

To Sum Up

This is not intended to be a slam on panels; VideoAmp currently works with two panel companies, TVision and HyphaMetrics. Rather, this is to correct the misperception – unfortunately disseminated by a panel provider – that somehow only a panel is immune to misrepresentation of diverse audiences. Frankly, having worked with both big data and panels, I would argue that the opposite is the case. Panels and samples have been fraught with issues around diverse representation since audience measurement has been around.

To attempt to build a system totally free from bias is a fool’s errand; rather, we should endeavor to build a system where the biases may be known, understood, quantified, and corrected for. At VideoAmp we strive to do this, and to constantly improve. One of the benefits of the Big Data assets we deploy is that their potential biases are more easily known – and thus, addressable. In fact, without Big Data, we would be blind to the ways that the millions of Americans not represented in panels are using media.

As VideoAmp's chief measurability officer, Josh Chasin boasts over 30 years of market research and audience measurement experience. He brings his expertise in audience measurement to the role with a focus on cross-screen measurability and its influence on advertising’s ever-evolving landscape. He is past president of the Media Research Council and was the recipient of the esteemed Erwin Ephron Award in 2020. When not focusing on advertising, Josh is a gold and platinum record holder with his liner notes for the Allman Brothers Band's 2004 DVD, “Live From the Beacon Theater,” earning him the honor with the Recording Industry Association of America.

In a March Madness for measurement companies, Turner Sports and CBS Sports brought in iSpot.tv, VideoAmp and Comscore to measure their NCAA men’s basketball tournament coverage.

The three potential alternatives to Nielsen turned up some fresh insights into viewers behavior and trends.

VideoAmp said that 47% of all households watched the tournament. iSpot found that the tournament generated 8.6 times more ad impressions that the No. 2 show, which was Good Morning America.

Also: North Carolina-Duke Draws Most Final Four Viewers Since 2017

Linear and streaming households watched an average of 16.91 games during the tournament.

Because the alternative measurement companies aim to provide cross-platform viewing data, some interesting observations about streaming emerged.

Comscore found that one-third of new households that did not watch in 2019 viewed on streaming platforms during the tournament in 2022.

Linear homes drove most viewing, but home that watch on both streaming and linear significantly over-indexed on time spent, accounting for 19% of total time spent viewing the games, VideoAmp said.

For advertisers, iSpot calculated that the NCAA tournament totaled 1.3 times more impressions than the Olympics. And Comscore said social engagement levels peaked at the beginning of the tournament and then again with the Sweet 15, with 56 million social actions made during the tournament.

Both Paramount, parent of CBS Sports, and Discovery, parent of Turner Sports, are exploring using alternative measurement data as potential currencies in the upfront. Traditionally providing currencies has been Nielsen’s role, but after losing its accreditation from the Media Rating Council, Nielsen is vulnerable to competition as it ramps up its own Nielsen One system for cross-platform measurement of content and advertising.

iSpot performed a similar test for NBCU during last year's Summer Olympics and in the first quarter when NBC air the Olympics and the Super Bowl. ■

VideoAmp said it acquired automated campaign management platform Elsy, a move designed to make it easier for media buyers and advertisers to adopt measurement currencies developed by companies including VideoAmp as an alternative to Nielsen.

Ross McCray, CEO and founder of VideoAmp, told Broadcasting+Cable that the clients that are testing its currency said they needed the process of managing campaigns using non-Nielsen data automated. 

After Nielsen was found to have undercounted viewing during the pandemic and lost its accreditation from the Media Rating Council, TV networks and media agencies have been seeking currencies for buying and selling advertising that are more accurate and more granular than Nielsen.

VideoAmp’s data is being tested by media agencies and programmers including Paramount and Discovery. McCray said that participants in the tests said that most of their time was spent manually inputting the new currency because their systems aren’t set up to handle it. Too little time was available for thinking about the advantages new currencies could provide.

“With this acquisition we’re doubling down on our position and saying we’re not only providing measurement, attribution and currency, but we’re also driving more of the automation for campaign management because that is going to accelerate the adoption of our measurement," McCray said.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Unlike some of the alternative measurement companies it competes with VideoAmp has long been a provider of media planning tools. “I think a lot of other companies haven’t been focusing on automation or workflow to scale, or planning. We think that’s going to help us,” he said.

VideoAmp already offers a system for managing upfront buys that McCray expects buyers to use in the upcoming upfront market. He expects Elsy’s campaign management system to be ready to handle alternative currencies when those commercials start to run in the fall.

Elsy CEO and co-founder Laurent Colard, who became senior VP of product at VideoAmp, said Elsy was set up to be measurement agnostic.

“We don't believe that a single company can necessarily own the very best measurement of everything moving forward globally,” Colard said. “And so we chose to build a platform that can plug and play and we've done that very successfully to date with a variety of measurement partners, including VideoAmp, and we intend to continue to support that because we think that choice drives Innovation.”

The Elsy platform uses predictive algorithms to plan, monitor, optimize and predict the performance of campaigns.

McCray said that the Elsy platform will be available both bundled with VideoAmp platform and data and as an independent product. “For every client that prefers to pick what they consider to be best-in-breed solutions, there’s another client that prefers the simplicity of an integrated solution. This combination allows us to support both use cases,” he said, adding that some current clients cherry pick its products, rather than using them all.

Colard said Elsy can meet VideoAmp’s timetable.

“Our platform is built for integration and we’ve integrated with many partners over the last few years,” Colard said. “We’re already pre-integrated with VideoAmp. There’s obviously a lot of work to do, but we can move fast.”

McCray said the entire Elsy team is coming to VideoAmp. McCray said the company did a remarkable job building the platform with little resources. “We’ll be investing in it,” he said. ■

WarnerMedia has enlisted ad buying giant IPG Mediabrands' Magna unit to help it test alternative measurement data from Comscore, iSpot.TV and VideoAmp during the second quarter ahead of the upfront.

TV measurement leader Nielsen took its lumps in 2022, as it was found to have undercounted audiences during  the pandemic and the Media Rating Council pulled its accreditation from Nielsen’s national ratings service. 

That opened a window of opportunity for would-be Nielsen alternatives as networks and media buyers started looking more seriously at using their data as currency for buying and selling ads.

NBCUniversal put out requests for proposals for measurement companies and got about 120 responses. It recently identified an early group of companies it intended to work with, including iSpot. NBCU and ad agency Publicis ran a test of iSpot during the first quarter, measuring commercials in big-ticket programming including the Olympics and Super Bowl . 

Also: NBCU Recognizes More Measurement Companies as Nielsen Alternatives

In January, WarnerMedia announced that it would work with Comscore, iSpot and VideoAmp. Discovery and Paramount are among those making similar moves.

During March Madness, televised by WarnerMedia’s Turner Sports, along with Paramount’s CBS Sports, WarnerMedia and Paramount worked together to test and learn how Comscore, iSpot and VideoAmp’s measurement systems would perform during that big event.

All of this activity is taking place as the clock ticks down to the upfront market. The clock is also ticking on WarnerMedia being acquired by Discovery.

Also: Ad Industry Seeks Alternatives After Nielsen Loses Seal of Approval

“Gearing up for the 2022 Upfront, we have been committed to developing a more expansive portfolio of measurement solutions for our clients and partners,” said JP Colaco, president of advertising sales at WarnerMedia. “This test-and-learn with Magna is one of the first steps in actionizing on our goal to offer best in class measurement capabilities and provide greater visibility into return on ad spend across our award-winning IP.”

WarnerMedia and IPG will be implementing alternative measurement across select product categories and advertisers to evaluate the application of currencies that use big data to estimate audiences. 

“The shift to cross-screen, impression-based video transactions is imminent, so we are keen to see these measurement solutions in action and understand how this paradigm shift can create new value for our clients,” said Brian Hughes, executive VP and managing director, audience intelligence & strategy at Magna.

Magna is also testing an early version of Nielsen's new system for measuring commercials, Nielsen One for Advertisers, along with The Walt Disney Co.

“This is an incredibly important moment in time in media and the initiative between WarnerMedia and IPG Mediabrands is proof that the industry needs not only accurate and reliable cross-platform measurement but a solution that can be trusted enough to underpin transactions across the entire media ecosystem,” said Bryan Goski, VP, enterprise solutions, VideoAmp. 

“VideoAmp is excited to work collaboratively across these two storied brands on this unprecedented opportunity. In doing so, we think our currency-grade data can help bring value to buyers and sellers of media and drive efficiencies that ultimately create a better media experience for consumers,” Goski said.

WarnerMedia said this will be the first of several anticipated trials and aims to provide the foundation for more informed media planning and buying, and figures out how to deduplicate in order to calculate campaign reach and frequency across linear and CTV. 

Andrea Zapata, the head of research, data and insights who is running the text for WarnerMedia, said that neither the company nor the media buyers it works with want to hurry into using new data from alternative measurement companies because the ad revenue stakes are so high.

"There has been sort of a rush to say we're going to transact or we're going to select one partner over another,” she told Broadcasting+Cable. “We’ve found it important, and the agencies we were with were also very clear, they don’t necessarily want to jump in with one provider. They don’t know what they don’t know. And in fairness, here at WarnerMedia, we don’t know either.”

Zapata said that test will be aimed at measuring campaigns aimed at targeted audiences, rather than traditional demographics. 

She added that it has taken a while to find a media buying partner eager to be a part of the test, but that Mediabrands has been a long-standing user of WarnerMedia’s Audience Now ad targeting system.

The test-and-learn program began with ad campaigns that launched March 28. WarnerMedia and Magna plan to do a mid-campaign analysis and a post-campaign analysis to see what kind of data they’re getting from the new measurement companies.

WarnerMedia is unlikely to pick a single provider for this upfront or going forward, Zapata said. Nielsen is in the mix also, even though it’s not involved in this test-and-learn focus because buyers and sellers are already very familiar with what Nielsen currently produces.

“Their data has been flowing through our pipe since the beginning of time,” she said. “It has the only measurement and currency that has been literally running through our stewardship systems, determining how we create our estimates and how we go to market and ultimately how the upfronts are negotiated, and we know where the shortcomings are and we know where the gaps are.”

The new measurement companies say they can fill those gaps. The tests will show how well they do that.

Ultimately, WarnerMedia plans to share the results from its tests with the industry in order to help develop a standard.

‘We're going to do an aggregate learning and we'll share it back to the marketplace and we'll share it back to our agencies and we'll tweak from there,” Zapata said. “ But this is not a one-and-done. This is an iterative process.” ■

VideoAmp, one of the measurement companies being eyed by media companies as an alternative to Nielsen, said it renewed its deal licensing TV viewership data from Xperi Holding Corp.’s TiVo unit.

TiVo’s second-by-second stream of data about viewership behavior of live and time-shifted content is used by VideoAmp to give advertisers for campaign optimization and planning.

VideoAmp combines data from cable set-top boxes like TiVo’s as well as automatic content recognition data from smart TVs to create its audience estimates. Some media company are testing using VideoAmp’s estimates as currency for selling advertising, a status that has been nearly exclusively Nielsen’s for decades.

“We’ve had a fantastic relationship with TiVo and look forward to continuing our mission to redefine the advertising ecosystem with the help of their TV viewership data. Our commingled viewership dataset is the backbone of our cross-screen measurement solution and platform and we rely on partners like TiVo to help us scale and bring new solutions to a more sophisticated and data-driven advertising landscape,” said VideoAmp’s chief strategy officer, Nick Chakalos.

The renewed contract runs through the end of broadcast year 2026 with renewal options.

“We are thrilled to continue supporting VideoAmp and its mission to lead change during this new age of media planning,” said Fariba Zamaniyan, vice president, data and monetization, TiVo. “Our TV viewership data will continue to provide VideoAmp with a powerful dataset that will give its clients the ability to buy and measure advertising with confidence.” ■

Comcast’s advertising division said it has licensed viewing data from the set-top boxes in subscribers’ home to VideoAmp, one of the measurement companies looking to provide an alternative to Nielsen in the race to provide a cross-platform currency for buying and selling TV advertising.

VideoAmp uses big data from set-top boxes and smart TVs to estimate deduplicated audiences. Adding data from Comcast’s footprint should make VideoAmp’s product more stable and reliable, the companies said.

“We are thrilled to work with Comcast as a way to advance national and local media currency solutions. This furthers our mission of providing a new, software-based media currency that creates higher return on ad spending for advertisers and additional revenue for publishers,” said VideoAmp founder and CEO Ross McCray.

Also: VideoAmp Renews Key Vizio Deal For TV Viewing Information

VideoAmp is working with Paramount, which is selling some of its national ad inventory using currencies based on VideoAmp data. WarnerMedia and Discovery have also announced they are testing currencies based on data from VideoAmp, Comscore and iSpot.tv.

The TV industry has accelerated its search for alternative measurement after Nielsen was found to have undercounted viewing during the pandemic. Nielsen also disclosed that it hadn’t been including some out-of-home viewing in its national ratings. Nielsen’s national ratings service lost its Media Rating Council accreditation. Its local ratings service isn’t accredited either.

VideoAmp and other data-driven companies have spring up to try to bring the industry alternative approaches to better capturing TV viewing at a time when video is being consumed on a myriad of platforms, services and devices.

“We’re very excited to support VideoAmp as they pioneer the next chapter of cross-platform audience measurement. This announcement marks a significant milestone in our journey to spur measurement innovation. Our ecosystem is stronger when brands and media owners can transact on multiple currencies and when such currencies exist for cross-platform measurement,” said Comcast Advertising president Marcien Jenckes.

Comcast did not say it would be using or testing VideoAmp currencies generated using Comcast's data.

VideoAmp is also working with five major media agency holding companies.

Media buyers said adding Comcast data would help VideoAmp.

“This is a really exciting time for alternative currency and the future of measurement within our industry," said Brad Stockton, senior VP, U.S. National Video Innovation at dentsu. “This partnership announcement sets the stage for even greater innovation and accuracy for advertisers to truly hold their media accountable. We look forward to continuing to see progress in this space, and are excited for this integration."  ■

Discovery and media buyer Omnicom Media Group said they would be conducting a trail of using viewing data from several measurement companies including Comscore and VideoAmp as the currency used for buying and selling TV advertising—a role dominated by Nielsen for decades.

Discovery and Omnicom said they aim to be able to use alternate currencies in time for the upcoming upfront market.

While the industry has always had complaints about Nielsen, networks now appear to be serious about finding more up-to-date ways to measure audiences, partly because of Nielsen’s recent troubles.

Also: Analysis: Super Bowl Could Kick Off Media Measurement Multiverse Mess

Nielsen was found to have undercounted national and local audiences during the pandemic, which led to Nielsen losing the accreditation from the Media Rating Council–the industry’s seal of approval. It also admitted to not including some out-of-home viewing in its national ratings.

NBCUniversal sent out requests for proposals for fresh measurement approaches. It is evaluating six companies as potential providers of cross-platform audience measurement. iSpot.TV emerged as the front-runner and NBCU engaged iSpot to provide metrics for its first-quarter programming including the Olympics and Super Bowl.

Paramount, formerly ViacomCBS, said it was working with media buying agency dentsu to use data from VideoAmp as currency in first quarter deals. And WarnerMedia said it was developing currencies using Comscore, iSpot and VideoAmp. WarnerMedia is being spun off by AT&T and combined with Discovery in a deal expected to close in the second quarter.

The Walt Disney Co. is working with Nielsen on Nielsen’s new approach to measurement, Nielsen One.

“As we head into the upfront season, it is vital that we work with our clients who believe they have an idea that might improve upon the current status quo in measurement.” said Jon Steinlauf, chief U.S. ad sales officer, Discovery. “This pilot program with OMG ensures our partners can test best-of-breed measurement solutions as well as trial new linear TV currencies, which will be an important first step towards transitioning to an eventual accredited person-based cross-platform currency.”  

“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,” added Geoff Calabrese, chief investment officer of Omnicom Media Group. “OMG’s partnership with Discovery will accelerate our ability to deliver on this imperative for our clients.”

Discovery and OMG said the trial is currently in progress across multiple advertiser categories and evaluates linear delivery for OMG clients via several measurement services. Comscore and VideoAmp will serve as the video measurement services for an initial set of advertisers, including AT&T and State Farm.

“We are proud to participate in the currency initiatives undertaken to advance the accuracy and evolution of media measurement,” said Carol Hinnant, chief revenue officer, Comscore. “We have invested in our media solutions to ensure that the buy-side and sell-side will have stable, predictable and accredited choices for measurement now and in the future.”

"Our currency-grade TV Viewership dataset, which commingles set-top box and smart TV data into a unified footprint for linear measurement across 39 million households provides accurate data on which buyers and sellers can transact said Michael Parkes, president of VideoAmp. “With VideoAmp measurement as currency, advertisers can now transact on age and gender, advanced audiences and cross-platform as well as understand attribution."  ■

WarnerMedia, joining the ranks of media companies exploring alternatives to Nielsen, said it will be working with Comscore, iSpot.TV and VideoAmp to develop potential currencies for selling advertising.

WarnerMedia plans to spend the first half of the year testing and learning with the three measurement companies and expects to use alternative currencies in the upfront for some traditional and advanced advertising transactions.

Andrea Zapata, head of research, data and insights for WarnerMedia Ad Sales, told Broadcasting+Cable that these measurement partners are being tasked with measuring reach and frequency across linear, video on demand, digital and streaming platforms. 

In an upcoming stage, WarnerMedia will be looking for companies that can measure advertising effectiveness. “There’s only so much you can do with reach and frequency,” Zapata said. “We want to demonstrate proven value for advanced advertising techniques that now we can measure.”

WarnerMedia is now a part of AT&T, but it being spun off to Discovery in a transaction expected to close this year.

Zapata said that WarnerMedia will continue to work with Nielsen and use Nielsen for some upfront deals. “I would never count Nielsen out of it,” she said.

But Zapata said that WarnerMedia’s search for alternatives picked up steam when the Media Rating Council pulled its accreditation from Nielsen’s national ratings service.

Nielsen's Problems

Nielsen was found to have undercounted viewing during the first year of the pandemic. Since then Nielsen has also encountered resistance to its plan to add broadband-only homes to its local ratings and confessed that a computer glitch had kept some out-of-home viewing from being included in its national ratings.

Nielsen’s troubles in a more complex media world have spurred media companies to seek alternatives to Nielsen, which has long dominated the TV measurement business. NBCUniversal last year sent out requests for proposals to measurement companies and got responses from about 80 vendors. ViacomCBS said it would use currencies from Comscore and VideoAmp and this year began making deals using VideoAmp data.

“I think everyone is sort of on the same page,” Zapata said.

Zapata said agencies and clients still care about the traditional demos, so it is asking measurement companies to show how they would count both men 18 to 49, for example, and more targeted audiences like people who intend to buy a car in the next six months.

WarnerMedia wants to be able to determine the de-duplicated reach and frequency of campaigns airing live on its cable networks, VOD services, digital platforms and its HBO Max streaming service.

“We’re really having real candid and frank conversations with measurement partners about what can you do now and what are you looking to do in the future,” Zapata said.

Different Capabilities In Mix

Zapata said each of the companies WarnerMedia has selected have different attributes and capabilities.

Comscore has been “in the big data game for a very long time,” she said and that put Comscore at the top of WarnerMedia’s list. Comscore also has a good plan for measuring addressable advertising, she added.

“Kicking off 2022 by partnering with WarnerMedia to allow advertisers and agencies the ability to evaluate new measurement across its media inventory is exciting and truly leading the industry to harness the future - now!” said Carol Hinnant, chief revenue officer of Comscore. “WarnerMedia has been a partner for nearly two decades and we are proud to have helped support all of their innovative solutions and believe this test and learn will bring the most value to the marketplace.”

Also: Comscore Everywhere Launching as Direct Competitors to Nielsen One

iSpot has been measuring advertising impressions using automatic content recognition data from smart TVs and has been able to de-duplicate across traditional linear and CTV, Zapata said. “This could be the day when we start decoupling program ratings from commercial ratings. They’re separate issues,” she said.

“Replicating the current system is not innovative and doesn’t bring the industry forward. Every second of advertising across platforms, and specific audience segments can and should be verified and measured along with programming,” said Stuart Schwartzapfel, senior VP of media partnerships at iSpot. “But beyond a better, faster system of quantifying audience, the technologies are now in place to measure the very real impact Warner delivers to brands. From offering attention rates to business outcomes at scale, a fresh, transparent approach helps brands invest with confidence, enables WarnerMedia to demonstrate the value it delivers and ultimately allows both to create a better experience for consumers.”

Also: iSpot Grows Footprint With LG Data From 20 Million Smart TVs

VideoAmp is using both set-top box and ACR data. “That really sets them apart,” Zapata said.

“This is a pivotal moment as the industry makes a once in a lifetime shift away from legacy television currencies to solve decades old problems that have plagued the advertising ecosystem. We couldn’t be more energized to collaborate with Warner Media and take yet another step towards a more sophisticated measurement and currency system. A system that is truly cross-platform, supports traditional and advanced audiences, plus attribution, and allows for both sides to unlock new value and win. VideoAmp is prepared to do whatever it takes to support our customer’s mission,” said Ross McCray, founder & CEO of VideoAmp.

While looking forward to a time when there would be more than one measurement standard, Zapata admitted that having multiple vendors could also be tricky.

“There are two things that are not free: content and measurement,” she said. But she was still interested in seeing where this process would lead.

“Across all these three partners, it was refreshing to see how open they were to not only share their product roadmap, but also listening to what we thought should be a priority,” Zapata said. ■

VideoAmp said it named Kelly McMahon as senior VP of client success, publishers and platforms, a new position.

McMahon, who had been with SpotX, will aim to build a team to accelerate the growth of VideoAmp’s business with TV networks, digital platforms, publishers, OEMs and MVPDs. Kim Jones, VideoAmp’s senior VP of client success will focus on brand and agency clients.

McMahon will report to VideoAmp President Michael Parkes.

“By focusing on specific customer cohorts, our client success teams can get even deeper with clients, providing more customized solutions that get them to their business goals faster and more efficiently,” said Parkes.

McMahon was with SpotX for eight years. She was a senior VP when SpotX was acquired by Magnite earlier this year, continuing as senior VP of global demand operations.

“VideoAmp has seen such tremendous growth and traction over the past year and I couldn’t be happier to join such an innovative company. There is a laser focus on creating a more sophisticated currency framework for the entire industry and I look forward to bringing this mission to life for our portfolio of sell-side customers,” said McMahon. ■

ViacomCBS and media buyer Dentsu said they have gotten together to launch advanced advertising campaigns in the first quarter that use data from VideoAmp as currency, rather than the traditional Nielsen demographic numbers.

ViacomCBS announced in September that it would use VideoAmp as currency when selling certain national ad inventory. The move comes as Nielsen faces new challenges. Nielsen undercounted TV viewership during the pandemic and its national ratings service lost it Media Rating Council accreditation, encouraging networks to seek measurement alternatives and opening the door for competitors.

“Measurement is no longer a monopoly business,” John Halley, chief operating officer of advertising revenue at ViacomCBS, told Broadcasting+Cable. “We’re democratizing the use of data in the guarantee and optimization of media campaigns.”

ViacomCBS and Dentsu are a good match. Viacom’s Vantage targeted advertising product is powered by VideoAmp, as is Dentsu’s DELTA (Data Enable Linear TV Activation) advanced advertising platform.

The advanced advertising campaigns go through OpenAP, using its Open ID to identify targeted consumers. OpenAP recently launched XPm, which lets advertisers  get cross-platform metrics from several measurement companies including relative upstarts VideoAmp, iSpot and 605. 

“Nielsen and Comscore are still involved in OpenAP, but essentially this is bringing another measurement approach into the space in terms of cross-platform specifically, and that’s somewhere that we need to move as an industry,” said Cara Lewis, head of U.S. investment at Dentsu.

Halley said that for a media company, using the data used to plan a campaign as the currency to transact “aligns our incentives.” ViacomCBS will be able to optimize campaigns to deliver viewers in the advertisers advanced target, rather than working to meet the guaranteed number of viewers in a broader demographic like women 25 to 54.

“We think that will ultimately result in much more effective campaign activations,” he said.

One impediment to data targeted advanced advertising campaigns is that they seem to have higher prices on a cost-per-thousand viewer basis compared to traditional campaigns.

“I don’t truly believe you can compare a CPM from a strategic audience to a demo guarantee,” said Lewis. “They will look more expensive, but essentially they’re more effective.”

Advanced advertising campaigns are also different because they are often designed to deliver targeted viewers, whether they’re watching a primetime show on CBS or up late at night streaming on Pluto TV.

In some cases, “ViacomCBS offer unified CPMs across platforms. In other cases it depends on the advertisers’ needs or requests,” Halley said.

It’s important for advertisers to know where their ads run, Lewis said, but “if we’re seeing that we’re finding our audiences in hovering and we’re seeing the in daytime and maybe it’s not 60% prime, that alright. We want to reach the audience.”

Lewis said that at first, only a couple of Dentsu clients in a couple of categories will be using the VideoAmp as currency. 

“We continue to talk about measurement with our clients, which we’ve been doing for the past year,” she said. “I would say we probably have a long journey ahead of us. This is just one step in the right direction.”

Halley said that ViacomCBS has been laying the groundwork for using multiple currency. “We are putting pipes in place on both the buy side and the sell side so that it’s going to be as easy to transact with custom data sets as it is to transact on Nielsen demography,” he said.

Lewis said that ViacomCBS was among the first to transact on advanced audiences. “I think it’s unique right now. We’re talking to other vendors about it. I think this is the way of the future. If they’re leading, then that’s amazing to be the ones that are leading,” she said. ■

OpenAP, the advanced advertising company, said it launched XPm, which gives advertisers the cross-platform campaign metrics they have been demanding with a choice of measurement companies.

Measurement companies Comscore, iSpot, Nielsen, VideoAmp and 605 are working with OpenAP, along with Innovid, which is offering enhancements to digital measurement for use in XPm reporting.

The measurement companies have found ways to integrate their own process for identifying consumers with OpenAP’s OpenID. Buyers using the OpenAP platform will be able to pick which provider they want to handle measurement (most buyers already have contractual relationships enabling them to use data from the providers involved).

Media agencies GroupM, dentsu and Horizon Media are among the first agencies to buy campaigns using XPm to plan and measure the targeted impressions delivered by their client’s advanced advertising campaigns.

“Now advertisers can actually have an understanding of who they’re reaching on a de-duplicated basis,” David Levy, CEO of OpenAP told Broadcasting+Cable. “They wanted choice, so we’ve brought in multiple providers and we’ve had strong buy-side adoption already and continued participation.”

OpenAP’s announcement comes at a time when measuring the de-duplicated reach and frequency of campaigns running on both linear TV and digital video has become increasingly difficult. Measurement in general has become more of an issue across the TV industry, with networks, media agencies and advertisers seeking alternatives to Nielsen, the often criticized leader in the field.

The inability to get reliable cross-platform metrics has been a significant speedbump for switching from planning and buying campaigns based on traditional age and sex demographics like women 18 to 49 to more specific targets based on factors including consumer behavior, such as suburban women who drive SUVs whose leaser are up in the next six months.

“Measurement that keeps pace with our industry's rapidly changing shift to on-demand consumption and addressable advertising can only be scaled when buyers and sellers get behind an idea and support it," said Matt Sweeney, GroupM North America chief investment officer. "OpenAP’s OpenID and XPm solution is a critical step in enabling true cross-platform measurement and audience delivery a reality for our clients."

Open AP was formed in 2017 by Fox, Viacom and Turner Broadcasting to offer standards for defining advanced targets. Open AP has since been transformed into a company owned by media companies including Fox, Comcast/NBCU and ViacomCBS offering one-stop shopping and optimized campaigns to advertisers looking to create data-targeted campaigns.

Most large media companies are working with OpenAP. The media companies provide information about the inventory they have available for targeted campaigns, but transactions are done between the media company and the advertiser and its agency.

Levy said that OpenAP’s volume is up 75% to 100% from last year to well over nine figures per quarter. GroupM, dentsu and Horizon are running all of their advanced audience campaign through OpenAP’s platform, he said.

Having a better way to measure those campaigns can only help. “We’ve been pretty stagnant from a measurement innovation perspective for a long time,” Levy said. “The idea that billions of dollars are transacted in this and yet as a marketer, there is still an issue with being able to count how many people you reached in linear and not having that match up with anything you’re doing in digital. It’s kind of crazy.”

OpenAP announced in April that most media companies and media buyer had signed up for its new OpenID platform, and that would clear the way for the Holy Grail of cross-platform measurement.

In addition to helping advertisers ensure they’re spending their ad dollars effectively, cross platform measurement is important to avoid showing consumers the same commercial over and over, ruining the viewer experience.

“We all compete for consumers' time and if we deliver bad experiences, well, then we can’t fault anyone but ourselves if people continue to leave television,” Levy said.

There are three components necessary for delivering cross platform measurement. The first is to use the same targeting segments across all transactional environments, whether the media inventory being bought is linear, CTV, mobile or addressable. Step two is being able to ingest the impression level delivery data and a common ID system.

Those are done. “Now we have the ability to create a campaign on one audience and distribute that audience to any publisher and deliver that to a measurement provider so they can produce cross-platform measurement,” Levy said.

The measurement companies do the third thing by processing the data and providing reports.

The VAB’s new Measurement Innovation Task Force will operate as the governing body of XPm in order to create common standards and establish controls on how data is used on behalf of TV publishers. Measurement company requirements will be defined by the Task Force, with all solutions subject to validation and verification by the VAB to ensure transparency of methodology and technical integration with OpenID.

“This is a seminal moment for the TV ecosystem, which is only just at the beginning of an era of tremendous innovation, collaboration and transparency. The future of video advertising will be built on and shaped by modern measurement solutions that allow for competition in the marketplace and more choice for advertisers — which is delivered by this initiative on an open stage. The coming months and year ahead will be defined as a period of game-changing advancement for our industry,” said VAB CEO Sean Cunningham.

At this point, OpenAP has not seen wide variances between the audiences reported by the different measurement companies. That’s important as media companies and buyers start to use a variety of currencies to transact as well as plan and measure.

“There are differences in methodology, but we’re not really seeing wild swings,” Levy said. “I think the publishers need to make sure that the currencies are all stable so that they’re able to provide pricing in a reliable way.”■

The Association of National Advertisers announced that it will test a cross-media measurement system provided by VideoAmp.

The announcement comes amid dissatisfaction with Nielsen and an industry-wide search for measurement alternatives.

Also: Ad Industry Seeks Alternatives After Nielsen Loses Seal of Approval

In September, ViacomCBS announced that it would be using data from VideoAmp as currency for some national media sales. NBCUniversal and the VAB have also been soliciting different measurement approaches.

“The goal of the VideoAmp component pilot is to quantitatively assess the cross-screen reach and frequency of advertising campaigns using different approaches to the VID model and examine which derive higher accuracy for TV reach and frequency curves,” said Nathalie Bordes, executive VP of measurement for marketers at the ANA. “This partnership represents an important milestone in the development of the cross-media measurement solution.”

Bordes said that ANA expects to be in market with an end-to-end pilot late in the second quarter of 2022.

The test is the result of the ANA’s Cross-Media Measurement initiative. The project is an ANA priority designed to improve advertiser decision making.

Also: David Kenny Calls Nielsen The Only Company That Can Deliver Cross Platform Currency

The CMM initiative aims to create a transparent system of measurement that restores essential metrics of campaign measurement and provides complete measures of all ad exposures, including deduplicated reach and frequency across all platforms.

The VideoAmp pilot is focused on testing the use of Virtual ID (VID) for television in the U.S. The overall goal is to test and learn more about the VID process to produce cross-media reach and frequency metrics for an advertising campaign. VideoAmp’s component pilot will test and evaluate approaches to the VID model and compare the results produced by the different methodologies.

“Cross-platform reach and frequency measurement is a top priority for marketers, but the methodology employed must give fair credit to TV, walled-garden, and other digitally-delivered ads. VideoAmp is excited to work with the ANA to help develop such an approach by combining our video measurement expertise with our unique contributions to the VID codebase,” said Jonathan Steuer, executive VP of TV strategy and currency at VideoAmp.

VideoAmp said it raised $275 million in Series F Funding and will use the money to accelerate  the rollout of its platform as a currency for buying and selling video advertising.

ViacomCBS said it will be using VideoAmp’s data as currency for national media deals. VideoAmp said it was in talks with other media companies interested in having an alternative to industry leader Nielsen.

Also Read: Ad Industry Seeks Alternatives After Nielsen Loses Seal of Approval

“While the ability to consume content on any device at any time is great for the consumer, the legacy media measurement and currency systems powering these services are fragmented, riddled with complexity and inaccurate,” said Ross McCray, founder and CEO. “These systems are providing an incomplete and siloed view of audiences and creating massive inefficiencies for the industry. We are thrilled to complete this round of fundraising and partner with these world class investors to properly scale our platform to create a healthier ecosystem for everyone.”

VideoAmp said the new round of funding was lead by investors including The Spruce House Partnership, D1 Capital Partners, Tiger Global, EPIQ Capital Group and Ankona Capital Partners

“After speaking with dozens of brands, agencies, and media outlets who are actively engaged in the VideoAmp ecosystem, it was clear to us that the status quo of media measurement and currency is broken and needs to evolve given the size of the market and the technological capabilities available today,” said Ben Stein, managing partner of Spruce House. “The world class team that Ross assembled has a generational opportunity to drive the advertising ecosystem towards a more accurate, accountable, and privacy-centric future through their self-service tools and software.”

VideoAmp said it made a deal that will enable it to incorporate data from HyphaMetrics’ cross-screen audience panels into its measurement products.

VideoAmp is one of a number of measurement companies jockeying to provide the TV industry with alternatives to Nielsen, which has been under fire because the way it managed its panels led to undercounting viewing during the pandemic.

Also Read: Ad Industry Seeks Alternatives After Nielsen Loses Seal of Approval

ViacomCBS said it would use a currency based on VideoAmp measurement as a currency to plan, transact and measure national media campaigns, a role monopolized by Nielsen.

“At VideoAmp we see panels as an important part of our overall solution set as the industry searches for a new holistic media measurement currency,” VideoAmp chief measurability officer Josh Chasin said. “We’ve been especially impressed with HyphaMetrics’ innovative, patented measurement tech stack and we look forward to working together to develop new measurement solutions for buyers and sellers of cross-screen advertising.”

VideoAmp said the way it is using HyphaMetrics panel-based data set aligns with the WFA’s blueprint for cross-media measurement. The WFA outlines merging census-level big data and panel data to provide a better understanding of consumer media behavior.

“Panels play an integral role in providing a definitive understanding of how consumers interact with content and advertising across all of their devices and channels,” said Joanna Drews, CEO and co-founder of HyphaMetrics. “We are excited for VideoAmp to incorporate this granular behavioral layer of data, covering all aspects of today's unique viewing environment such as video gaming, secondary device usage and walled gardens.”

Drews, a former Comscore executive, started HyphaMetrics, which has developed its own meter to measure every network, program, advertisement, product placement, streaming app and gaming environment on every device in a household. The company expects to have 5,000 homes and 15,000 devices hooked up to its technology.

In March, HyphaMetrics received a patent for cross-platform measurement.

Also Read: MadHive First To License Panel Data from HyphaMetrics

VideoAmp uses a data set of co-mingled viewership from smart TVs and set-top boxes to measure video across devices. The data is housing on a platform where it can be utilized with tools for planning and optimizing campaigns and valuing media as its being bought and sold.

Also Read: VideoAmp Renews Key Vizio Deal For TV Viewing Information

VideoAmp is a charter member of HyphaMetrics Content Metrics panel trial. The trial, which commenced in July of 2021, will run through the first quarter of 2022 in order to encompass major viewing events like the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics.

VideoAmp and Vizio said they renewed their agreement enabling VideoAmp to use data from smart TVs as part of a new ad sales currency that ViacomCBS and others plan to use as an alternative to Nielsen.

Vizio has been restricting the use of data from its Inscape unit as it builds its own targeted ad business. The new deal lets VideoAmp use the data for planning, measurement and ad sales through 2025, with an option for VideoAmp to extend the pact.

Also Read: Ad Industry Seeks Alternatives After Nielsen Loses Seal of Approval

ViacomCBS last month announced that it will be using VideoAmp to sell and guarantee ad deals. ViacomCBS and other programmers were already using VideoAmp for planning and measurement. VideoAmp said it was talking to other programmers about using its currency as well.

VideoAmp is also conducting pilot programs aimed at creating alternative currencies with six major media agency holding companies.

“We’ve had a longstanding relationship with Vizio and are looking forward to what the future holds for our partnership. Effective advertising hinges on changing the way we use our datasets to create more advanced, resilient and transparent solutions for our clients. Vizio has been a trusted partner in helping us achieve an unrivaled level of confidence and service for our clients,” said VideoAmp chief strategy officer, Nick Chakalos. “Our renewed partnership will ensure the continued delivery of privacy-safe, scalable solutions for reaching the right audience while also optimizing media investments and advertising yields in the most effective way.”

Vizio’s Inscape collects automatic content recognition (ACR) data from more than 18 million opted-in Vizio Smart TVs. VideoAmp combines that with data from set-top boxes to get a picture of viewing across video platforms.

"VideoAmp’s continued use of VIZIO’s Inscape viewership data will help support VideoAmp’s recently announced currency plans,” said Travis Hockersmith, VP of Platform Plus at Vizio “Vizio's Inscape continues to help accelerate cross-screen currency options with our best-in-class data set.”

In a sign that the television measurement world is changing, ViacomCBS said it will be using an alternative currency from VideoAmp to plan, transact and measure  national media campaigns, a role for years monopolized by Nielsen.

ViacomCBS said the move was part of its multi-currency strategy, adding that it was also part of an industry-wide move to get more measurement options at a time when video consumption is shifting to streaming platforms from traditional linear TV.

VideoAmp is in talks with other media companies about providing media buying currencies. It is conducting pilot programs with six major media buying holding companies — including Omnicom Media Group, Havas, Dentsu, GroupM and Horizon — aiming at developing alternative currencies.

Also Read: Ad Industry Seeks Alternatives After Nielsen Loses Seal of Approval

Adopting a new currency is a blow to Nielsen, which has been under fire this year since the networks trade group — the VAB — claimed Nielsen undercounted viewership during the pandemic. The Media Rating Council, the industry watchdog, confirmed the undercount and suspended the accreditation of Nielsen’s national TV measurement service. Nielsen is in the process of creating Nielsen One, a new system for counting viewers on multiple platforms in a consistent and comparable way.

The VAB, the Association of National Advertisers and NBCUniversal have all initiated processes aimed at creating new measurement options. Companies including VideoAmp, Comscore and iSpot.TV are developing metrics for impressions (who saw a commercial) and outcomes (what did people who saw an ad do) that could be used as currency for buying and selling ads.

Also Read: Nielsen’s David Kenny Fights Back After Accreditation Loss

ViacomCBS’s deal with VideoAmp is “an important part of this broader narrative that starts with Nielsen’s struggles,” John Halley, chief operating officer of advertising revenue at ViacomCBS, told B+C. 

“Just to be clear, we’ve been engaged with VideoAmp for a while,” Halley said. “This would have happened whether [Nielsen] lost their accreditation or not. We’re not saying that we’re replacing Nielsen. What we’re saying is that the measurement marketplace needs diversification and that innovators like VideoAmp can accelerate us into that future.”

Many media companies like ViacomCBS and media buyers already use big data from VideoAmp and other measurement companies to plan campaigns and identify and target audiences most likely to be receptive to an ad message.

Up until now, data from VideoAmp and other data and measurement companies have mostly been used in television advertising to plan campaigns and to allocate linear investment. Agencies would then negotiate guarantees using Nielsen metrics.

“What we have here is the opportunity to align the planning KPIs [key performance indicators, or a campaign’s goals] with the guarantee KPIs to create more transparency and efficiency in the marketplace,” Halley said. “We think that is an opportunity for real market transformation.”

VideoAmp will be creating currencies for both the kinds of advanced audience segments its Vantage platform uses, Halley said, as well as the traditional age-sex demo still used by most advertisers.

At first, deals using VideoAmp as currency will be a fraction of ViacomCBS’s overall business, Halley said. “But I think it will fast grow into something material.”

Those deals will use VideoAmp as the sole currency, rather than incorporating Nielsen and using VideoAmp as a secondary or shadow guarantee, he said.

As ViacomCBS uses Nielsen as currency for fewer deals, Halley said he would expect the company to be willing to pay less to Nielsen. “If you look at the dollars that have been guaranteed by Nielsen over the course of the last few years, obviously it goes down as the linear marketplace shrinks,“ he said. ”As this business moves to streaming, Nielsen no longer has the data advantage.”

Ross McCray, CEO and co-founder of VideoAmp said his company has been preparing for this deal since it was founded seven years ago.

“Our philosophy on the currency side is that it’s not a zero-sum game,” McCray said. Using VideoAmp’s commingled TV viewership dataset will let buyers and sellers look at more precise audiences and allow them to figure out which impressions and spots are going to be the most valuable in a particular campaign.

“We’re hoping to demonstrate in these currency pilots that it creates a higher return on ad spend for the advertisers while creating more yield for the sell side because there’s waste that’s being eliminated,” he said.

VideoAmp’s big data set can also be used for attribution metrics, which can also be used as a guarantee in ad sales deals.

The data is also rich enough to do the kind of predictive analytics advertisers are starting to use to forecast viewership patterns.

ViacomCBS’s Halley said his company has used VideoAmp’s data as a basis for prediction, and that it worked successfully.

In addition to ViacomCBS, VideoAmp is talking to many other programmers, said McCray, who expects VideoAmp’s currency to be among those used across the industry.

VideoAmp has been active with groups that have been looking to reimagine the measurement business and develop standards.

“We believe that as long as we continue to develop against the standards of OpenAP, OpenID, the VAB, the ANA, there will be broad adoption on this,” McCray said. “I think that’s something that we’ll see over the next couple of months or quarters.”

“Measurement is an industry initiative it is a team sport. We’re going to move collectively together to define its future,” Halley said. “Ultimately that future is going to involve multiple currency options based on the advertisers’ and agencies’ preference. It's up to us as sellers to support all those options.”

As for Nielsen? “Nielsen is not going to be the monopoly provider anymore,“ Halley said. ”They're going to be one of several and they're going to have to compete for the advertisers and publishers business. The question is, can a historical monopoly provider of legacy service rapidly develop a product roadmap that meets the needs of advertisers in the current day.”

VideoAmp said it is working with data cloud company Snowflake to provide clients with the ability to share data among multiple parties while maintaining security and privacy.

The new capability enables advertisers, publishers and data owners to have a more comprehensive view of cross-screen measurement and optimization and is being integrated into VideoAmp’s measurement, activation and attribution tools.

NBCUniversal said it is already engaged in a pilot program working with the VideoAmp-Snowflake system to measure holistic cross-screen reach and frequency across multiple networks. The pilot will also allow advertisers to measure their own advanced audiences across linear TV, connected TV and online video.

NBCU this week said it received proposals from dozens of companies in the measurement and data business in response to its request for proposal aimed at looking at new ways to measure audiences and the impact of advertising.

Also Read: NBCU Shows Off Ad Tech Capabilities at One21 Event

VideoAmp expects to launch more private betas in the fourth quarter.

“The industry is at a crossroads of regulatory change, privacy shifts and increased awareness around privacy rights. With change comes opportunity,” said Ross McCray, co-founder and CEO of VideoAmp.

“We couldn’t be happier to partner with a company like Snowflake, who shares our level of commitment to preserving privacy and security for all stakeholders in the advertising ecosystem. The multi-party environments we’ve been able to build on Snowflake’s infrastructure allow for the extraction of high-quality insights from multiple data sources, without the data ever having to change hands,” he said.

VideoAmp said the first use case of the new measurement system allows multiple publishers and platforms to share their data, providing their own parameters around how the data can be used. The publisher and platform data is combined with VideoAmp’s proprietary commingled TV dataset and a client’s first and third party data within their Snowflake platform and the native cloud environment. VideoAmp clients and partners are able to leverage previously restricted datasets and use cases, while publishers are able to enjoy peace of mind regarding the security of their data.

“VideoAmp’s innovative approach to data sharing and security is a perfect example of how we can maximize the value of the Snowflake Data Cloud, all while enjoying the highest standard of cloud security and performance. VideoAmp is a valued member of the emerging media cloud ecosystem” said Bill Stratton, head of media strategy at Snowflake.

VideoAmp said it hired Brian Danzis as executive VP of national account sales.

Danzis, previously global head of video and live event sales at Spotify, will lead VideoAmp’s agency-focused account team. He succeeds Laura Tormey, who was promoted to chief revenue officer in May.

“We couldn’t be happier to have an industry veteran like Brian joining the team. Under his guidance and leadership, we are confident that our teams across the U.S. will continue to grow and deliver premium solutions that cater to our clients' specific business goals,” Tormey said. 

“I've spent nearly my entire career in video monetization; from linear TV to large digital publishers and technology companies. Now more than ever, the market is in need of a truly independent measurement and optimization platform. That's why I'm thrilled to be joining VideoAmp at this stage in their growth,” Danzis added.

Also Read: Cameron Meierhoefer Named Chief Product Officer at VideoAmp

VideoAmp has been growing and adding staff.

It hired Wendell Younkins as chief account officer, a newly created post.. 

Younkins most recently served as senior VP, global controller of television distribution at NBCUniversal, where he worked for 20 years. He will report to Paul Ross, who joined the company as CFO in May.

VideoAmp is also ramping up investment in their product and engineering teams. Advancements will build off of VideoAmp’s proprietary commingled dataset, which combined with planning, measurement, optimization and attribution tools, provide advertisers with a deduplicated view of advertising performance across linear, streaming and digital.

Adtech company VideoAmp named Cameron Meierhoefer as chief product officer, a new post at the company.

Meierhoefer, previously CEO of SignalFrame and COO of Comscore, will focus on advertising measurement and optimization products at VideoAmp. He will report to CEO and co-founder Ross McCray.

“We have a laser focus on redefining the way the advertising industry values, buys and sells media inventory. Cameron’s track record and experience in creating currency solutions perfectly lines up with what we are looking to accomplish at VideoAmp,” said McCray.

“Our significant investment in product and technology will allow our clients to unlock even more value when it comes to their media investment,” McCray said. “After decades of defaulting to a legacy monopoly, we are redefining the way media is transacted upon, enabling a more sophisticated and flexible advertising marketplace that benefits everyone.”

Meierhoefer will be basing new products on VideoAmp’s dataset, which commingles ACR and set-top-box data across 28 million households. VideoAmp’s current tools enable marketers and media owners value the advertising they buy and sell across linear, streaming and digital platforms.

“The pandemic accelerated shifts in the TV landscape and it is critical that advertisers and publishers have a holistic understanding of their audiences in this dynamic environment,” said Meierhoefer. “VideoAmp is leading the industry to meet this challenge, offering data solutions that promote new ways to measure, optimize and transact that overcome the shortcomings of legacy currency measurement in this new world.”

VideoAmp said it launched Campaign Organizer, a self-service software product that bundles audience creation, reach and frequency optimization, competitive insights, planning, activation, measurement and attribution.

The product incorporates attribution technology from Conversion Logic, which was acquired by VideoAmp in March. It also employs VideoAmp’s commingled TV viewership data based on 28 million households and 40 million devices.

“Our goal is to make our clients’ lives easier. We often hear feedback and frustration about working across multiple DSPs, linear planning tools and walled gardens like Hulu, Google, Facebook, Disney, ViacomCBS, etc. The Campaign Optimizer solution was purpose-built to solve cross-channel campaign reach and frequency management and attribution,” said Kelly Metz, VP of product marketing at VideoAmp.

“It equips our clients with the necessary tools to optimize their investments between linear television, programmatic platforms, digital publishers and walled gardens, eliminating waste and egregious over-frequency and increasing the conversions they care about most,” Metz said.

Campaign Optimizer uses attribution reporting to derive planning insights. It incorporates both linear and digital media, providing comprehensive reports on audiences and conversion.

“At Mars Petcare, our ambition to increase media efficiencies by deploying people-based frequency management seemed lofty until we learned about VideoAmp's Campaign Optimizer solution. Making sure we're able to reach our audiences in the best, most efficient ways is critical. Campaign Optimizer gives our team the tools we need to achieve that goal," Alia Mohamed, senior manager of marketing data and technology, Mars Petcare US.

With Campaign Optimizer, VideoAmp is among the companies building self-serve platforms clients can use to get data and analytics along with planning and buying tools.

“With Campaign Optimizer we are connecting linear TV, streaming OTT platforms, walled gardens and digital publishers. We then allow clients to integrate multi-touch attribution with planning and audience optimization tools, ” said Michael Parkes, VideoAmp’s chief revenue officer. ”This dramatically improves their media effectiveness and efficiency. VideoAmp is the cross-channel currency that allows advertisers to identify and buy more of their high converting audiences at the most optimal frequency, delivering the best results possible.”

VideoAmp said it named Robert Leff as chief financial officer.

Leff, who had been chief financial officer at OpenX, succeeds Tom Schmitt, who left the company. Before OpenX, Leff spent 10 years at Fandango.

“Bringing Rob on board was a no-brainer. His ability to help companies realize their fullest potential through strategic and calculated business decisions is unparalleled," said Ross McCray, co-founder and CEO of Videoamp. "We see this as the next point in maturity for our company. Rob has an incredible track record in leading previous companies through similar stages of exponential growth, taking Fandango through seven acquisitions, for example. We are really looking forward to what the next two years will hold for VideoAmp with Rob on the leadership team.”  

“I can’t imagine a more exciting time to be joining VideoAmp," said Leff. "I truly believe in the vision and values which made accepting this opportunity one of the easiest decisions in a long time. I’m honored to be joining a best in class management team and company that is developing unique data-driven solutions for marketers.” 

Viewing of broadcast and cable TV, which spiked as people stayed home to slow the spread of COVID-19, is dropping back to pre-quarantine levels as more states reopen for business, according to new data from VideoAmp.

App-based over-the-top streaming viewing remains higher.

Looking at the top 50 markets in states that re-opened in early May, such as Dallas, Denver, Houston, Birmingham, Nashville and Oklahoma City, VideoAmp found viewership peaking during the “early quarantine period” from March 9 to April 12, coming down some in the “mid-quarantine period” from April 13 to May 3 then tumbling during the “recent quarantine period” from May 4 to May 24 to levels slightly lower than the pre-quarantine period in January and February.

“We saw that when quarantine started, linear TV went up on the order of 18% to 20%," said VideoAmp chief measurability officer Josh Chasin, noting that app based tune-in went up more than twice that.

“Over time, linear has come back to earth. App-based tuning has not,” Chasin said. “Obviously there’s been a migration to streaming to app-based tuning,” he said adding that cord cutting has accelerated, fed by the increase in unemployment.

Cities in states that were still partially closed showed smaller drops in viewing and were still as much as 7% above pre-quarantine levels. Those included New York, Chicago, Boston Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Cleveland.

Many of those cities are among those showing the biggest gains in this “recent quarantine” period. The largest gains were seen in Laredo, Texas; Alpena, Mich., Glendive, Mont.; Detroit; New York, Miami and Baltimore.

Three of the four markets showing the biggest declines in the "recent quarantine” period are in San Angelo, Texas, followed by Alaskan cities Juneau, Fairbanks and Anchorage.

Chasin noted that one of the few dayparts not to rise during quarantine were during the weekends, when sport viewing boosts ratings. Without sports, VideoAmp clients wanted to know how to reach those sports viewers.

“I wish I could tell you they’ve all picked themselves up and deposited themselves handily in one place. But what really seems to have happened is they have scattered,” Chasin said. News and information programming gained, but so did female oriented networks.

“We think what is happening is sports fans ceded control of the remote in the households,” he said. “With no game on, ‘they’re asking ‘honey, what do you want to watch?’”

News viewing is down from its spike in March, VideoAmp said. Viewing for CNN remains above its pre-quarantine level, but Fox News and MSNBC are back to where they were before the crisis swelled.

Among all networks during the recent quarantine period, smaller, specialty networks showed the biggest gains compared to the pre-quarantine period. At the top of the list were Discovery’s GAC, DIY, Destination America and American Heroes Channel. Also showing gains of 45% or more were CMT, FYI, Up, Sundance and CNN.

"We’re all waiting with bated breath waiting for sports to come back. I think viewers are voracious for some live sports, as are the advertisers,” Chasin said. “We also want to see what happens when [the networks] start running out of new content.”