Do the solutions match the challenges measurement faces?
Bob Hoffman, aka the Ad Contrarian, will be joining the 2014 European Television and Radio Symposium.
From 5 to 7 November over 250 of the world’s leading broadcast audience measurement specialists, broadcasters and agencies will meet in Madrid at the 24th annual European Television and Radio Symposium organised by asi.
When it comes to measuring TV and radio, separately or together and across different platforms, we are faced with many challenges. However, we also have more tools potentially at our disposal than ever before.
Audio fingerprinting, watermarking, fixed meters, portable meters, software meters, metadata, server data, return path data, diaries, recall studies, fusion and other techniques are all vying for our attention, separately or as part of ‘hybrid solutions’.
The challenge for the research suppliers and the measurement bodies is to align the available approaches to the challenges – and at times it can seem a dizzying task.
To attempt to match the questions to the answers, for the first time at asi we will be running a joint TV and radio session labelled ‘The Tools of The Trade’ chaired by Torin Douglas. We will get to hear exactly what the global measurement companies see as the future of measurement and get immediate reactions directly from a panel of industry bodies and clients who will explain where their priorities lie.
Meanwhile our keynote speaker, Bob Hoffman, the Ad Contrarian, will be cutting through the myths and PR hype surrounding digital measurement to tell us what he thinks really matters to advertisers in this brave new digital world. It’s a day after bonfire night, but expect fireworks anyway.
The long-term future of television looks far more secure than it has for many years – TV drama is declared to be in a new golden age, global television ad revenue forecasts are promising and most analysts predict that TV will continue to be the ‘super-medium’.
It is claimed that the internet, social media and mobile have served only to further amplify the strength of television in a digital eco-system that is desperate for quality content, with advertisers valuing attentive and responsive viewers. However, it can be argued that the future of television research itself is far less certain.
So at ‘asi 2014’ our core theme is: what really matters?
What really matters to broadcasters, platforms, advertisers and agencies? Which are the metrics that still remain valid in a digital world? Are the established audience measurement companies remaining relevant? How much do social media really reflect and influence the fortunes of programmes and advertising? What exactly do we mean by ‘television’ and ‘radio’ nowadays? Do broadcast brands matter? Where does television stop and ‘online video’ start?
At heart, though, our wide range of papers for this year’s seminar reflect that it is the viewer that really matters. Our speakers will be focusing on how best to measure them, how best to describe what they do, how to link that to other media and consumer behaviour and how to generate insights for content owners and measurable outcomes for advertisers.
Our mission in Madrid will be to cut through the hype and the histrionics, the PR and the puff to get to the heart of what really matters to the measurement industry.
So stay tuned to MediaTel Newsline in early November for reports directly from the event and I’ll be posting a summary of the key themes later that month. In the meantime you can read my summary of last year’s seminar in Venice here.
Richard Marks is research director for asi and director of Research The Media Ltd