And Zamaniyan is keen to say that data is helping fuel the new wave of alternative TV currency systems – Vizio, comScore, and iSpot.

“They haven’t been able to build their currencies if they didn’t have access to viewership data,” Zamaniyan notes.

Earlier this year, VIZIO launched its branded content studio, partnering with major brands for key content moments throughout the year.

Now it is bringing out of its first executions – a seasonal TV show for Home Depot, Merry & Bright, that will live on VIZIO’s smart TV homepage.

TV-ratings stalwart Neilsen is developing ways to measure audiences across multiple platforms such as connected television, and it also faces more competition from startups such as Comscore, EDO, iSpot.TV, Samba TV, TVision and VideoAmp.

In the last couple of years, the TV ad industry has been noting, kicking the tyres of and, ultimately, adopting non-traditional measurement and trading systems.

Paramount Global this month picked iSpot.tv as a currency option for linear and streaming TV in the United States. Trading on the media-measurement company’s data are expected to begin in the first quarter, the companies announced.

We’re certainly humbled by the $300 million commitment,” Potts says. “MadHive is approaching a $1 billion dollar valuation. So that was a very meaningful conversation to us, to have them really trust us to run the business in full and be a partner that could sit on our board and could offer resources.

That is the view of many industry executives who welcome the recent creation of a Joint Industry Committee (JIC) to iron-out ecosystem differences.

Currency Must Catch-Up To Measurement With Collaboration: iSpot.tv’s Muller – Beet.TV

Back in 2021, she put out a call to the emerging crop of alt measurement suppliers, gaining interest from around a dozen suppliers. In early 2022, she picked VideoAmp, iSpot.tv and Comscore to provide cross-screen measurement.

Capabilities like targeting and frequency control through connected TV have, until recently, been the preserve of larger, national brands. But MadHive is amongst the ad-tech companies bringing those powers to local brands.

“I think it’s our responsibility to make it less complicated,” Berlingo said, during an interview at Beet Retreat San Juan.

The new era of TV advertising looks likely to be measured by a multitude of providers, not just the historic single outfit.

In that kind of competitive landscape, how are any of the contenders – like iSpot.tv, VideoAmp and others – going to stand out?

The currency requirements were sent to measurement companies such as Comscore, iSpot, Nielsen, SambaTV, TVSquared, VideoAmp and 605 on March 1. All of them were formally invited to participate in the upcoming JIC measurement certification program.

In response to Nielsen’s linear accreditation challenges and the demand to extend measurement across platforms, many broadcast companies have been testing out and adopting alternative providers, like iSpot.tv and VideoAmp.

“I’m very excited about how the next upfront is going to go,” says Fahey Rush. “I think that we’re going to see a huge increase in the amount of campaigns that are bought on alternative currencies.”

Measurement on the agenda

Madhive’s Marino is keen to hear a maturation on the topic of connected TV measurement which Beet Retreats have brought to life.

Levin says marketers have at first used traditional Nielsen demographics.

“But over the last eight years since we started the ad business, we’ve seen actually that’s continuing to decline and using first-party data, finding a more precise audience, has become by far more predominantly used across our platform,” she says.

“For the 2023 upfront, we at Warner Bros Discovery are absolutely going to be transacting off of alternative currency,” Zapata says.

With Zapata, WarnerMedia had held a beauty contest in 2021, searching for new measurement vendors, with the aim of going beyond simple demographic measurement, and announced the winners in January 2022 – iSpot.TV, VideoAmp, Comscore.

In November 2022, TVision raised a $16 million investment round led by iSpot, which was already a TVision customer, making for a total $58 million raised.

“iSpot and TVision both believe in the panel-based, personal-level measurement, which can be complemented by the big data such as smart TV dataset” Lieu says.

So, you can now target your TV ad at an individual household. That’s great.

But, in a multi-person home, how do you know who is watching?
Answering that question is going to require bridging so-called “household graphs” with an understanding of individuals – and Scott McKinley thinks he may have the secret sauce.

In 2019, Comcast, Charter and Cox launched the On Addressability initiative. Project OAR also involved TV makers like Vizio, promising a technical standard for addressable advertising placements.

A key difficulty facing advertisers is getting accurate measurements of connected television viewing. Essence’s sister agency GroupM recently performed a study with iSpot.tv that found 8% to 10% of supposed video impressions were delivered when a television was turned off.

This summer, it announced that “companies including Disney, Fox/Tubi, LG Ads Solutions, NBCUniversal, Paramount, VIZIO and Warner Bros. Discovery have committed to working at an industry level with agencies, advertisers, and standards-setting bodies” on a measurement framework that ensures ads are only counted when delivered to screens known to be on that have viewers in front of them.