Shashi Sinha & Jonah Goodhart decode ad measurement in a digital era

Ad measurement in the digital advertising industry was the focus of The Ad Club’s Media Review, held in Mumbai yesterday. The event saw Shashi Sinha, CEO, IPG Mediabrands India and Jonah Goodhart, CEO and Co-founder, MOAT, address the distinguished gathering.

Speaking on ‘Growing India’s Adex with Measurement’, Shashi Sinha started out by stating how BARC is way ahead of the earlier system. According to Sinha, rural measurement has become the currency even as growth in rural is helping grow the economy. “Today, rural is growing faster than urban. Most of the brands are planning for the rural markets. And also in the pipeline are TV and Digital planning capabilities, which are expected to go live by September next year and will give idea about where we stand,” he added.

In print measurement, the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) has been improving its research methodology over the years, for instance, introducing CAPI, Data Fusion, 40 per cent increase in sample size and much more. Some of the proposed initiatives include Multimedia Evaluation and Media Personality Fit Study, Sinha informed. He further said that digital, too, is not far behind, with ABC making a foray into digital measurement, which will measure publishers as well as other digital property owners, websites as well as Apps from PCs, tablets or mobile phones and will cover reach and frequency as well.

“But the marketer’s dream is to have single source data that will serve as one source for all research information like demographics, psychographics, product consumption as well as media consumption. A single source data can composite view of record that spans multiple data. And in the absence of single source data, data fusion is a fairly strong alternative, which is already being used in IRS. Various researches like IRS, BARC, ABC as well as TGi can be integrated into one quasi-angle source data,” Sinha pointed out.

He further said that today, there is need to make Big Data a reality as Big Data is the latest buzz in the analytics space. It can help in creating an altogether new level of segmenting and targeting consumers. And to move towards that the vision, Sinha said, the first step is to come together with a common thought process and pooling of resources from the multi-media industry body.

Since, different metrics are used to measure different media, a common currency has become a necessity as digital measurement works on more advanced metrics. Building a case for CPT, Sinha affirmed, “TV buying needs to shift from CPRP to CPT as it has outlived its utility.” He added that here, CPT could be the new metric, while effectiveness could be added as a layer on top of exposure.

The future is all about multi-screen planning, hence media professionals have to upgrade their skillsets. Sinha maintained, “Skillset enhancement is the need of the hour. Big Data expertise will be an added advantage!”