{"id":1516,"date":"2021-09-02T14:51:42","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T13:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/?p=1516"},"modified":"2021-09-02T14:51:42","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T13:51:42","slug":"money-power-and-influence-in-measurement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/money-power-and-influence-in-measurement\/","title":{"rendered":"Money, Power and Influence in Measurement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today’s post finds inspiration in ‘The Sound of Music’, and Morecambe and Wise<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Let\u2019s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start\u2019, as Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers had it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the very beginning, media space was in such short supply you took what you could get. But as restrictions eased, new media forms emerged and the media business grew, those responsible for spending advertising money needed some indication of who was doing the watching and the reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Over time it became clear that these numbers had to be as accurate as possible, objective, unbiased and acceptable to all sides. \u2018Trust me\u2019 became less acceptable than \u2018Look at this data\u2019. Mind you, sometimes we seem to be back in the \u2018trust me\u2019 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus was born the Joint Industry Committee, or JIC system. In the UK this meant JICTAR for TV, JICNARS for print, JICRAR for radio. Other geographies (except the US) followed suit so that today we\u2019re at a point where the JIC concept is well and truly accepted, some would say embedded within the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The principle remains a simple one. All sides, that\u2019s the media vendors, the agencies and the advertisers all sit in a room and decide what research to do to measure audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They write a brief and jointly commission a research agency to do the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The individual sides\u2019 priorities are different. Media vendors want the biggest possible numbers, whatever the reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agencies want something that gets them closer to defining and understanding the audience to an ad. They also want to pay as little as possible, and for the talking to end so they can get back to their day jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advertisers want much the same as the agencies with one proviso \u2013 historically they have been averse to paying anything. As the great Bernard Balderston of P&G, the ISBA representative on every media committee there ever was used to put it, \u2018We\u2019re paying for everything anyway. It\u2019s up to you to convince us to buy.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so it was that the cost was largely carried by the vendor \u2013 it was their audience that was being measured, they paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And of course they controlled; after all, he who pays the piper..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But things are changing, as the industry edges towards measuring what has always been true; consumers use multiple media forms so we need to understand how they fit together. We need a framework for cross-media measurement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That much is clear, the problem has always been less about how, more about who pays, and crucially who controls?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agencies never have any money (although strangely they seem to discover a magic money tree whenever award season comes around); media vendors can\u2019t be expected to prioritise research that by definition promotes others\u2019 strengths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That leaves the advertisers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advertisers are the ones driving this car. They ultimately benefit from better planning based on a comprehensive cross-media framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, advertisers have to pay, but how can they ensure an industry consensus?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if the large advertisers made it clear that they expect their agencies to support work done to improve the industry\u2019s measurements?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if all pitch briefs, and agency contracts made it clear that the client recognises the benefit to the business of better cross-media planning, but also notes and values the significance of this work to the industry as a whole?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a part of that expectation, the client will play its part and pay for a proportion of the time that the agency allocates to industry affairs. Not only will this time be allocated and measured as a deliverable, but the agency should pay a share too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agency\u2019s fees are adjusted to reflect this, but the rule would be simple: no industry involvement \u2013 no business from us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are alternatives. One is the levy system proposed here several times<\/a>, and reportedly under consideration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such tactics may be in part cosmetic \u2013 at the end of the day, the advertiser pays, but as Bernard said, they always do anyway. It\u2019s just how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The media vendors, of all colours should be involved. They have significant expertise, and they can contribute a great deal to the conversation around what\u2019s needed to improve planning across channels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But they shouldn\u2019t control or dictate. They don\u2019t get to drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Planning is an inter-media discipline; buying is intra-media. Control over the shape of inter-media should be in the hands of those who plan and those who buy those plans – the advertisers and their agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The buying piece, the currency remains crucial, and that\u2019s where the vendors\u2019 control should remain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any cross-media measurement, headline numbers by medium might go down as new considerations, like attention enter the fray. Media vendors shouldn\u2019t argue on the basis that the bigger the better, the smaller the poorer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smaller, more engaged can be beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Planning needs a cross-media framework \u2013 not a replacement for a currency, not a new system to replace everything else. A framework, a way of bringing together knowledge and data to help improve and shape how we plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As our old friends Oscar and Richard had it: \u2018When you know the notes to sing you can sing most anything.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have the notes; we just need help putting them in the right order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s post finds inspiration in ‘The Sound of Music’, and Morecambe and Wise. \u2018Let\u2019s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start\u2019, as Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers had it. In the very beginning, media space was in such short supply you took what you could get. But as restrictions eased, new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1516"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1517,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516\/revisions\/1517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}