The above video interview is from Internet Week in NYC.
Sponsored by
There’s concordance among industry sectors that the TV marketplace is efficient thanks to having a standard unit of measure. Everyone knows what a Neilsen rating is worth.
For David Cohen, Global Digital Officer for Universal McCann, there’s no equivalent in the online space. He sees lack of a standard nomenclature to describe what is being purchased is inhibiting growth in this space. Cohen is involved in an industry initiative, Making Measurement Make Sense, that is looking at how to create industry standards to compare the efficacy of online channels to other channels.
With the online market a relatively small $2 billion, real, as opposed to perceived scarcity may not be as much of a driver to move dollars to online during the upfront. Cohen also notes clients for whom the June upfront is not viable from a planning perspective and works with them on a calendar year basis. In addition, others are using scattered or ad hoc approaches. (Real time, anyone?)
As brands evolve into content producers, Universal McCann is working with a number of brands on video assets — snackable, long-form and episodic. Ensuring this content gets viewed online is a big issue. Solutions include driving traffic to custom channels that target existing channels.
Next year’s upfront for online — informed by the business results of initiatives such as microtargeting — may be quite different from this year’s.
