As TV And Digital Screens Blur, Audience-Buying Metrics, Not GRPs, Will Dominate

The question of how to measure TV audiences vs. digital audiences has become an important question to brands and media agencies these days.  As the line between TV and digital blurs, the metrics for accountability and success are crucial.  In an interview with adexchanger.com (http://www.adexchanger.com/analytics/as-tv-and-digital-screens-blur-audience-buying-metrics-not-grps-will-dominate/), George Shababb, president of Kantar Media Audiences, discusses how he sees the changes to media metrics.  He discusses how audience-focused metrics are going to be the norm in place of the historically used GRPs.  DirecTV and Dish Network are the two systems that are currently enabled to provide this new norm for advertisers.  Yet their reach is very limited; they are only given two minutes per hour to provide their own advertising that can be made addressable to specific audiences.  These only constitute a reach of 20 million households. 

In addition, there are two separate issues at hand.  The first is how the success of a TV campaign is measured; in other words, how TV campaigns can become more sophisticated as new audience measurement systems are introduced.  The second is the terminology used.  Should all forms of advertising be using the same terminology, regardless of the screen?

Media planners will recommend not using a GRP system with digital advertising.  They say the digital metrics are not comparable to reach and frequencies.  The largest concern is that 30 seconds of TV is more impactful than a digital impression from a banner.  Yet it seems that online video is more similar to TV than other static or less rich media digital advertising.  For all those to be counted as a similar type of impression takes away from the strength of video (sight, sound, story). 

In addition, the GRP system is ingrained into the media buying process.  To change that system will take many years and a major shift in the buying process that will create significant complications in the industry.  While using the same terminology seems like a great idea, implementation would likely be extremely difficult.

This is a separate issue though from using more audience-focused tactics rather than looking at programs and dayparts to reach particular audiences.  We should be using more sophisticated tracking capabilities regardless of the terminology as we continue to better identify exactly who is watching a program.  Why continue to rely on the more prediction-based methods currently used.  With digital TV and set-top boxes, methods of audience identification can be vastly improved regardless of the terminology used.