Keeping Pace with Video and Electronic Media

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ARF members will take stock of the latest measurement techniques at a July 10 meeting.

It’s not easy to keep pace with the best ways to measure fast-changing video and electronic media. The ARF will offer a close look at some of the latest research strategies to evolve at an upcoming meeting.

The Video & Electronic Media Council on “Conventional and Unconventional Metrics in This Upfront,” will meet at the ARF’s New York City headquarters on July 10, from 2:30-4:30 p.m. EST. It will look at the strengths and weaknesses of the conventional metrics advertisers, agencies and sellers used in the ’08 to ’09 Upfront. Also on the table: the increasing use of untraditional metrics in negotiations.

“This is a chance for us to take a metrics snapshot before our researchers go on their summer vacations,” says council chair Ned Greenberg, vice president of research at The Weather Channel. “For a while now, we’ve been really preoccupied with converting from program metrics to commercial metrics. We’ll get clarification in this session. What have people worked with and why?”

One recent development on the conventional side of research that Greenberg plans to explore is broadcast networks’ use of online streams as make-goods on broadcast ads. “That’s new,” says Ned. “It’s pretty unprecedented that a network goes to a different platform. It’s being accepted by agencies. We’re trying to get to: What was the thinking there?”

On the unconventional side, the increasing use of metrics that have been used to help planners understand audience makeup in business negotiations is also on the agenda. “From a quantitative side, set-top box data is being used for validating certain things in deals,” notes Ned. “Its’ been used to inform planners in the past. Now it’s crossed the transactional threshold. It’s becoming part of buying. We want to find out to what degree that is the case. “