Dive summary:
- Clients and their agencies are pressuring web video publishers to guarantee audiences, like TV has done, through Nielsen’s Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) data or comScore's Validated Campaign Essentials.
- Publishers including forerunner YouTube are resisting using the data because the pressures to deliver the targeted audience is too steep; the data is imperfect as publishers can attempt to guarantee an audience from Nielsen or comScores data, but then must wait days to find out if predictions were correct.
- According to publishers, this model puts unacceptable amount of pressure on them to deliver guaranteed audiences they have to produce a considerably larger audience than the stats to get the percentage; small publishers in particular struggle to meet the demands.
From the article:
"'I think we're living in a world of imperfect metrics,' said Adam Shlachter, svp of media, Digitas. 'Look at TV ratings. If OCR/VCE are a way of creating consistency against how we evaluate, negotiate and track the digital video space, those that don't align with those metrics will suffer somewhat.'
In other words, YouTube may miss out. Parent company Google believes it has a better way of measuring Web videos. And with a billion users, it certainly has some clout. Plus, Google has long had designs on competing with Nielsen and comScore."
