A shakeup in the media measurement world has consultants and buyers wondering what analytics will be the go-tos for the ’22 midterms.
The Media Rating Council earlier this month suspended its accreditation of Nielsen’s local and national TV ratings services, in part, because it was allegedly “undercounting TV viewers during the pandemic.”
That move, combined with the unending amalgamation of digital with traditional television via OTT, has media buyers scrambling for new ways to measure.
“There’s right now no way to accurately measure,” Michele Certo, a partner at Sage Media Planning & Placement, Inc., said during C&E’s Reed Awards Conference Sept. 9 in DC. “We’re leaning more toward reach and frequency than we have in the past.”
For some practitioners, it’s like an inexact science has gotten even more opaque. “A lot of media buying is fairly mystic,” said Raghu Devaguptapu, a partner at Left Hook. “I think you’re going to see a change in how you think about measurement and a move way from the gross ratings point and a move toward an impression.”
The reason why measurement is becoming increasingly important is because practitioners are recognizing it’s harder and harder to reach audiences that are spread across so many different platforms.
“We’re competing in a landscape where it’s ever harder to break through,” said Devaguptapu. “We increasingly see diminishing returns.”
While better measurement will help, it’s also on media consultants to help their clients tell “more and better stories,” he added.
