A need to shift measurement rapidly beyond reach was a key theme throughout the Future of TV Advertising program, plus punchy debate on whether the numbers Foxtel is now trading off via Kantar can be trusted to the same level of rigour as those delivered by OzTam’s panels and device data.

More broadly, Nine’s Nikki Rooke accused the industry of “hypocrisy and inconsistency” in holding TV to a gold standard, and yet it is “often being bundled with and compared to low impact digital video” by buyers. 

“TV is held to extremely high standards. What OzTam had to go through to get where it is now are hoops that no one else has been asked to jump through. Even when we look at the way TV is bought, we're held to standards that others simply aren't – even through to clients not wanting to buy midnight to dawn, because that audience 'doesn't count'. Come on. How does that work in the digital video landscape? That's just one example. I think we've got to start looking at comparability,” said Rooke.

While agencies acknowledged the inconsistency, Magna MD Lucy Formosa Morgan said fracturing currencies and ongoing channel and audience fragmentation means measurement “is not going to go back to one single source any more”. Which means doubling down on rigour and auditing.

Agencies were repeatedly pressed on treatment of impressions as equal, given the vastly different standards applied to different channels and platforms as to what constitutes a viewed ad – with acknowledgement that the market needs to move to outcomes-based reporting, albeit with accurate reach numbers in the first place, or risk skewing outcomes-based systems and market mix models.

Outcomes sprint

While agencies have built their own systems to stitch together both incremental reach and outcomes across channels, some powered in part by OzTam’s Voz data, and TV companies have long worked to prove outcomes via campaign tracking and brand lift studies, Nine’s Rooke acknowledged a missing piece: “We don't have a real time dashboard that is showing those outcomes.”

Foxtel Media CEO Mark Frain suggested Adgile Media could quickly build that dashboard – priming Adgile’s Chief Customer Officer, Craig Sevice, to confirm the offer.

“You can have it. We're doing it now all the time, and I think it needs to be done at scale,” said Service. “Audience, from a television perspective, has been growing. That's a really strong sign. But … Google, Meta, Amazon are dominating for a couple of reasons. Number one, they show that [advertising with them] works and how you optimise it – but they're only showing how to optimise within their own channel. They are actually positioning themselves as outcome-based partners, not just vendors. So I think that's where the real enemy of competition is. But all of what they're currently doing is available for TV.”

Service suggested agencies building their own tools to stitch together different data and currencies “is not sustainable” and that audiences are no longer a reliable proxy for outcomes. He said Adgile could quickly deliver a cross-industry streaming and broadcast dashboard based on automated content recognition (ACR) technology – i.e. tech embedded in smart TVs and devices that recognises what people are watching as it is viewed, including ads.

He also questioned the wisdom of marketing industry bodies sitting back and taking a “fast follower” approach to broader cross-media measurement, describing it as a “potential death sentence, because we just don't have a horizon to sit back and watch what someone else is doing … If nothing is done, the TV landscape will be very different by 2027. There's some urgency here”.

Hence touting Adgile’s ability to move faster and deliver a total TV outcomes dashboard within months.

“We're doing it now. We're doing it in real-time. And I think one of the key things is independently – we don't buy any media, we don't sell any media, we don't create data segments. We just want to show how video and TV is working,” said Service.

“We're just giving the data back to marketers and agencies to get the best possible outcome they can for their business, because reach is no longer what it was. The [key measure now] actually is: When somebody sees my ad, what are they doing? What is the actual outcome of that? That is critical.”

Agility required

Both Magna’s Lucy Formosa Morgan and OMG Chief Media Partnerships Officer Marelle Salib argued that accurately modelling outcomes require a broader data set than just those being proposed either by Adgile or OzTam or any other party, hence building their own tech to fill in the gaps and make the best call on investment. But Foxtel’s Frain said that was precisely the point.

“That is what agencies are good at. That is their job, they are experts at it. So it is faster for us to get our data in order and pump it into the agencies,” he said.

“We have a company here [Adgile] that can be independent and put together a platform for all parts of television, across the industry, and tell us which parts work best, and in totality how television does versus radio, versus outdoor. And then what happens? We all rise. We can get it audited, we can get it endorsed by the MFA – and then we can get outcomes across 20-odd video players. That is future facing stuff. So let’s just be brave and get on with it.”

Nine’s Rooke said she was in total agreement.

“I think that is exactly where the industry needs to go. Adgile do provide a solution, I am all for that. So that is a conversation where we need to [agree] are we going to do something about that, are we going to invest in it?”

Service moved to close the deal – “the capability is already there, we can have that conversation now,” – and OMG’s Salib backed it to help stem the flow of dollars to big tech:

“From their inception, analytics is first nature to Meta and Google, and they measure everything. Whether the measurement is right, whether they are marking their own homework, that's a whole other story. But at the end of the day, we are optimising within their owned ecosystems based on outcomes. How do we get to a place [for total TV] where we can do that faster?"

"No measurement system is perfect", she added, but indicated that progress over perfection is a likely win-win.

"Adgile is providing that opportunity. Market mix models are amazing, but they take time and they come later."

Magna’s Lucy Formosa Morgan was less effusive. “We love Adgile, but we also have our own models that show outcomes.”