Technology is giving consumers new ways to view TV content beyond their living room antenna, and it’s providing a plethora of data for brands to activate on. However, TV planning and measurement most often relies on legacy tools built when TV was only linear. Marketers now face the uncertainty of moving massive investments around without the tenured tools they’ve always used to plan and measure. They also can’t rely on historical benchmarks to guide those investment decisions—but that’s not the only obstacle.
Four challenges facing the new landscape:
- Linear reach continues to decay. This is a direct result of viewership fragmentation. No matter how you develop your network and daypart mix, it takes incredibly large investments to achieve the reach you want. The result: maximum frequency—hitting “heavy TV” homes more times than needed to achieve business outcomes and therefore conversion.
- Content-based video planning is almost impossible. With over 500 scripted programs produced in 2019, and an average of over 100,000 hours of programming available in homes with SVOD, it’s a challenge to predict what your audience is going to watch over the next 12 months.
- Combining traditional demographic audience planning with new-age digital. This newer hybrid doesn’t allow for apples-to-apples planning and measurement. Traditional media owners and tv programmers aren’t prepared to execute with custom audiences.
- An ecosystem rife with fragmentation and consolidation. Hundreds of players in the industry offer overlapping solutions, but there isn’t one that does it all. Creating a cohesive strategy is hindered by the Frankenstein approach to planning, execution, and measurement.
Why cross-screen TV measurement isn’t easy
Reach, frequency, and impressions measured consistently across all screens have historically been hard to access and implement. There are new options available, but there are also lingering questions and struggles:
- Incomplete data sets that create inherent inaccuracy and skew results. While you may not be getting what you need from demographics-based GRPs, there’s hesitation in abandoning that standard for something that also has flaws.
- Matching identities of people and households across screens feels out of reach for most TV marketers. Let’s be real, it seems impossible. The historic inability to measure online and offline channels together for a holistic reach and frequency, which helps brands allocate media channel budgets and make smart investments, makes this feel impossible.
The solution to these challenges is rooted in data connectivity and identity. Without multiple quality data sources and the identity infrastructure to navigate cross-screen measurement, results can be skewed and incomplete.