This month, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), the Association of Online Publishers and ISBA (Incorporated Society of British Advertisers) have announced a joint venture to create a BARB* style audience measurement panel for the Internet in the UK. The panel will be managed through JICIMS, the Joint Industry Committee for Internet Measurement Systems.
The advent of this panel could herald a major stepping stone in online’s journey to full maturity as an advertising medium. But equally, the creation of such a panel creates a Premier League of online media owners. What does this mean for those online media owners who don’t make it into the top flight?
It’s great to be in the BARB Club
In the TV world, being on the BARB panel puts your channel firmly on the radar of media planners. When measured by BARB, your channel is part of a Premier League of measured media options. These are the channels which have high critical mass; they have enough audience to value being measured and enough cash to pay for being measured. Planners use presence on BARB as a proxy for quality. Because all channels on BARB are measured in the same way, using the same currency, planners can make a fair assessment of media value when evaluating a range of channels. So, if you’re on BARB it is far easier to command the attention of media planners and therefore much easier to get your site included in the planner’s media recommendation.
But not so good if you’re on the outside
Unfortunately the average media planner is short on time. If he or she can solve a communications planning problem from within a pre-selected group of measurable channels, then they will. Why should they extend their attention beyond 200 or so BARB measured channels? Channels outside BARB tend to be small (they don’t think being on BARB will help them because their audiences are so small) or cash strapped (not able to afford to £25k+ fee required to be included on BARB). For many time-starved media planners, these marginals simply aren’t worth the bother.
What does a BARB style panel mean for online?
It’s obvious from the experiences of the TV market that panel members will become part of an elite group of media owners - the Premier League of online. This select group of media owners will inevitably form the start point for many online media planners and they will find it easier to be included in media recommendations. Those sites not on the panel will struggle to be included on plans and consequently struggle to gain revenue.
To cut a long story short, life without an online measurement panel makes it easier for smaller sites to survive. With the online panel in place that emphasis is likely to shift; making it easier for larger sites to gain revenue and build reputation, and push smaller sites onto the outside margins of planners’ attention. So, rather ironically, the desire to make online a more measurable medium could favour the few and disadvantage the many.
* For those not familiar with BARB, the BARB panel is a panel of 5,000 homes in the UK which uses a ‘Peoplemeter’ device to track the TV viewing patterns of occupants of the sample household.
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Rory Sutherland as new IPA President
I think it’s great news that Rory Sutherland has been made the flag-flyer at the IPA. This is for two reasons. Firstly he’s a direct marketer through and through. And whilst the traditional mass-analogue advertising model still has a big role to play in marketing communications, times have changed with the advent of the internet, mobile and ipods. One-to-one communciation is becoming an increasingly important, if not dominant model. As a direct marketer with a broad mind, Rory is a great choice to be the standard bearer of this change in the advertising community. His appointment marks a coming of age for direct marketing.
Secondly, anyone in advertising, and particularly anyone with a creative pedigree who is broad-minded enough to say, “I eccentrically believe data analysis and really good statistical modelling can be immensely creative - because, just like a good creative team, well-worked data can reveal wonderfully unexpected, unasked for truths” automatically gets a vote from me. As David Ogilvy once said, in advertising it pays to be unorthodox.
However, it’s a shame that Rory has to feel ‘eccentric’ when it comes to promoting the benefits of using hard data. Advertising does seem fixated on basing its decisions on what people say they might do in some given situation rather than looking at what people have actually done in a known situation.
Data doubters in advertising argue that data analysis can only provide ‘rear view’ insight and therefore has only limited application in the creative process. But the past is a repository of great learning and there should be no doubting how this can help us better manage the future. The reality is that all intellectual development and economic progress is a product of the past. If you don’t believe me, ask Barack Obama what he’s learnt from FDR or look at what the Beatles learnt from skiffle. So, if looking backwards can help us solve the current global economic crisis, or create some of the greatest popular music of all time, then surely it can certainly help us sell cars, cereals and holidays.