Imminent merger between television and the social media

WARC, 26 February 2014

LONDON: The world of online video and TV are converging as industry figures call for gross rating points to be used for measuring both audiences and for online video planning to be incorporated into a broadcast framework.

Nick Reid, managing director of TubeMogul Europe, an enterprise software business, told The Drum that the proliferation of audience consumption across multiple devices, had created challenges when planning, buying and trying to reach audiences.

"The consumer doesn't look at engaging with video specifically through the media channels of TV or desktop, they think about video as video," he said.

Similarly he argued that giving his customers the opportunity to use Gross Rating Points (GRP) as a planning tool, enabled them "to speak in a traditional language and metric".

"As media consumption is converging, we need to look at metrics which are consistent across TV and online and GRP delivers on this," he said.

He added that it was vital to understand audiences and how to reach them with frequency in order to answer questions such as 'does online video increase my incremental reach?' and 'when does online become more or less effective than TV?'

He saw the use of programmatic technology as helping to drive greater understanding and efficiency. "We can reach those consumers and measure and track them…we're moving to a world that is much more accountable" he declared.

Writing in the January issue of Admap, Jean-Paul Edwards of Manning Gottlieb OMD, suggested that strategic planning of online video within a broadcast framework was essential to maximise multi-platform video content and ensure it was reaching the appropriate audiences.

He outlined a three stage process for the introduction of new techniques to a TV plan as it develops into an AV plan.

Most brands, he said, were still at the beginning of this approach and he advised them to think in terms of working within traditional TV planning metrics to define the role of online video.

Data sourced from The Drum, Admap; additional content by Warc staff

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