Kantar Media and ComScore prep first joint offering for cross-media audience measurement
Kantar and ComScore have formed a tie-up which will seem them launch their first joint offering for cross-audience measurement for key clients.
The incoming service is the first to come from the strategic alliance between the two measurement firms unveiled earlier this year. The union pools Kantar’s TV credentials with ComScore’s online equivalent to provide a more robust measurement scheme for advertisers.
Both companies have developed the framework to distill a range of reporting scopes and the options of available measurement techniques including panels, meters, tagging, home routers, return path data and census profiles. It builds on the companies' similar approaches to tagging, which allows data sharing with client permission but without requiring duplication of implementations.
The service will pilot in Spain, where there was strong interest, ahead of a wider roll out.
Andy Brown, chief executive and chairman of Kantar Media, said: “As advertising spend on integrated cross-media campaigns increases, there is a growing demand for solutions that bring together TV and internet audience measurement to provide cross-media reach & frequency.
“We are pleased at the progress our research and technical teams have made in combining different measurement techniques and designing a common approach. Cross-media measurement solutions must be responsive to local needs so we have designed a framework that maximizes the use of existing data sets and commercial considerations in any given market.”
The move comes as advertisers bemoan the lack of a measure that ties all their cross-channel efforts together in a way that offers the same audience depth to what they get on TV. Sir Martin Sorrell urged the advertising industry to bring "measurement into the 21st century" earlier today at an event in London.
Serge Matta, chief executive of ComScore, said: “We are delivering on our promise to simplify the deployment of global measurement capabilities and accelerate the creation of new services for the industry. The customer response to our partnership was extremely positive, as the market is eager to see cross-media measurement for both audiences and campaigns.”
The defined scopes of reporting for the integrated measurement approach in addition to core broadcast TV include:
- Extended TV - content broadcast in simulcast or on-demand on smartphones, tablets desktops and OTT devices.
- Total Video - all video content from online platforms whether broadcast video or not, such as YouTube.
- Total View - all online content whether video or text based, accessed via a browser or app, on smartphones, tablets desktops and OTT devices.