The U.S. Joint Industry Council, set up by the TV business to modernize and evaluate media measurement, has certified iSpot.tv as a company with data that can be used as currency in media-buying transactions.
iSpot’s certification is wider-ranging than the certifications received in April by Comscore and VideoAmp.
The JIC found that iSpot Data Connect produces data that can be used for transactions across all currency classifications it evaluated, including Personified Demos, Total Households and Audiences across both Average Commercial Minute and Exact Spot measurement.
iSpot, VideoAmp and Comscore are among the measurement companies that have been challenging Nielsen, which has long dominated the TV-ratings business.
The industry has complained about Nielsen’s cost and accuracy. The shift to streaming intensified demand for more granular measurement and the opportunity for alternatives to Nielsen and alternative currencies seemed to grow.
iSpot CEO Sean Muller said that his company held back during the JIC’s last round of certifications until its new methodology was in place.
For its new methodology, dubbed iSpot Data Connect, the company has created an identity spine by mapping out every household and every person in the United States for both streaming and linear viewing of ads and the results those ads produce.
“Everything that we do is now mapped to a household or to a person, either explicitly or using machine learning,” Muller said.
That’s very different from taking a data set, extrapolating to the universe and then building reach and frequency curve from that extrapolation.
“You've got to have the whole universe first at a person and household level in order to create reach and frequency curves that will be consistent and accurate over time,” he said.
The new methodology means iSpot is uniquely positioned as the TV business shifts to streaming and marketers want to compare the reach and results of their video investments across linear, streaming, digital and social, whether they’ve been bought based on demos or on advanced audiences.
iSpot is also offering to provide the exact viewership of each commercial, as opposed to the average of all the spots within a show. That can be crucial for big-ticket sports advertisers, because iSpot has shown that advertisers can get short-changed when spots at the end of a lopsided game get significantly lower viewership than spots that run earlier, while the “average hour” ratings — and price tags — are the same.
“All of these marketers are under pressure to prove that these massive Investments in video are delivering business results,” Muller said. “It's just such a swirl. So for us for us, the North Star is is helping them make sense of the swirls and make better decisions by bringing it all together.”
Seeking Currency for Streaming
The definition of currency is changing as the video industry moves to streaming, Muller said.
Before the upfront market, there was a lot of clamor for using currencies other than Nielsen, which is developing its own new metrics based on big data in addition to its panel of Nielsen families.
“Our experience was the agencies were still buying traditional linear the way they always have and perhaps that will continue for traditional linear,” Muller said. “The deals that are being made in the streaming world are completely different. They're not using Nielsen.
“Most of those deals are made today on publisher logs, but verified by a third party,” he continued. “So as more sports and other programming transition to streaming, I think that’s when you’re going to see a lot of the legacy currency just completely change. It’s more about the verification and the outcomes than it is about the actual counting of the impressions because in streaming counting of the impression is a little bit more straightforward, but you still need verification.”
With iSpot’s news methodology, an advertiser can compare its buys on NBC and TikTok to see how much of their audiences are duplicated and how much of each publisher’s impressions are incremental.
“Now imagine being able to do that against any set of publisher sets, whether it's linear streaming or digital social,“ Muller said. “That’s the power of all this.”
iSpot’s certification follows completion of the JIC’s data-evaluation phase, in which JIC members conducted more than 270 tests to ensure the data produced met the baseline requirements around transparency, completeness, methodology checks and data stability. Certification was then awarded following a majority vote by the Full Committee.
“If we are to meet the needs of advertisers who are racing to keep pace with today’s streaming-first viewer, we must continue to innovate, build and deliver more modern and accurate measurement solutions,“ said Travis Scoles, executive VP of advanced advertising at Paramount Global and chair of the U.S. Joint Industry Committee’s board of directors. “The results from the JIC’s data evaluation show that iSpot is helping drive the industry forward as it has reached the baseline level of transactional readiness as a currency.
“We applaud iSpot, as well as all of our measurement partners, for their commitment and tireless effort building for the future,” Scoles said.
iSpot said its data spine is interoperable with all of the industry’s major identification systems, including Experian, Epsilon, LiveRamp, Roku and Disney.
A Pricey, Tough Problem
“This stuff is not easy,“ Muller said. “It takes a lot of money. To be able to run a query against every household in person in the U.S., and do that in real time and do that quickly, is a massive problem. This is why most companies don't do that. It's too much data for them.”
iSpot received a $325 million investment from Goldman Sachs in 2022. Last year, iSpot acquired measurement company 605, which Muller said brought with its audience data from Charter Communications and expertise in handling advanced audiences.
Muller said that the JIC certification is another step in gaining trust as the industry transitions from linear to digital.
“We've already built a lot of trust with advertisers and and publishers,” he said.
The Media Rating Council has already accredited iSpot’s ad catalog and airings data. iSpot is now in the process of getting the MRC to accredit iSpot Data Connect, Muller said.
