Comments on: Motes and Beams

By: Brian Jacobs

Brian Jacobs — Sat, 25 Jul 2015 07:49:27 +0000

Thanks for the kind words Bob.
Of course you’re right – all of these media metrics are staging posts on the way to understanding what shifts stuff. The problem is too many people forget that, and spend their lives arguing about the finer points of detail, the colour and fabric of the soft furnishings decorating the staging posts. They become so comfortable there that they forget where it was they were headed in the first place, seems to me.

By: bob hoffman

bob hoffman — Fri, 24 Jul 2015 23:10:24 +0000

As usual Brian, very well written.

As far as I can see, there is only one measurement of media effectiveness that should be of any interest at all to an advertiser: message impact per dollar. All the rest is misdirection.

By: Brian Jacobs

Brian Jacobs — Fri, 24 Jul 2015 09:40:16 +0000

Many thanks for the comment, and for your kind words. I’ll do my best…
I agree that online is absolutely its own worst enemy. I suppose in a nutshell: you can have too much measurement! And when there’s too much of anything people spend far too long arguing the finer points of detail and ignoring the bigger issues.
You make a really good point that measurement standards were for a while just ignored. I remember going to a conference and hearing a digital agency guy (I think it was one of the Profero founders but could be wrong) say that he couldn’t give a fig for measurement standards. His point was that as the industry was growing so fast they really didn’t care, or think it necessary. His arrogance was stunning; and of course he’s been proved wrong.
On the business model I think to be blunt there’s something of an unspoken issue. Agencies know full well that they need to play a role helping clean things up but whilst they’re making so much money as a result of all the chaos there is hardly an incentive for them to do much about it. So they wring their hands, do bits but again don’t really address the underlying issues.
One of the bits the agencies could do a lot to help advance is in the area of audience measurements. But they rarely participate in the debate (I know there are a few honourable exceptions), preferring to wait until something emerges and then criticising from the sidelines.
If more of them would join the industry in trying to address the issues around audience measurement the issues are more likely to get resolved, or at least advanced!

By: Rupert Staines

Rupert Staines — Fri, 24 Jul 2015 09:11:07 +0000

Brian – great piece as ever and extremely well articulated. I have two comments that I’d love to hear your opinion on:
1. I have always said that in online we are our own worst enemy because there is the mistaken idea that having everything measurable is somehow media’s panacea but that is to ignore the fact that measurability gives rise to hidden truths that sit uncomfortably with Clients – Viewability, Fraud etc… in traditional media there is less cause for this type of concern but is it simply that online is the people’s media and therefore its advent in the mid 90’s somewhat passed the media advertising industry by and consequently the requisite standards for audience measurement were not applied for almost a decade and even today we are still grappling with ‘standards’. I’d argue the industry (the IAB) are playing constant catch up which is why the thorny issue of Data Privacy will never be sensibly dealt with because ‘Regulators’ are now 20 years behind!
2. I believe we are moving to a new business model where the different channels, the transaction of media, the targeting capabilities, and all associated measurement techniques will be turned on its head and the planning and trading thereof will be focused on the media of me, i.e.Audience

thanks