The problem with traditional media measurement tools is they all exist in silos. More channels mean more silos to stitch together and a greater risk of wasting ad budgets and annoying people with too many ads – or missing them altogether. Which is driving brands and agencies to try some interesting new approaches in a bid to crack cross-screen media measurement.

Kmart, its agency UM and IPG tech stablemate Kinesso think they have landed on a winner, Beatgrid. This groundbreaking solution relies on a single-source passive mobile-based panel, incorporating purpose-built Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology. Pioneered by Beatgrid, this technology utilizes advanced techniques for the comprehensive analysis of AV content across a diverse range of screen types. Today, this solution has been successfully used across $100m media campaigns by the likes of Amazon, Google, Nestlé, Unilever and Virgin.

Beatgrid founder Daniel Tjondronegoro says the measurement solution is “privacy first”, and can also measure out-of-home and retail footfall attribution via location data while delivering far more credible brand lift studies than surveys reliant on “people being able to remember what they’ve seen”.

As cookies die off, Tjondronegoro suggests panel-based measurement is making a “strong comeback”. Google has bought in – as has Kmart, after Kinesso Digital Strategy Director Charlie Allatt, convinced UM’s Kmart to lead Adam Russell to trial the tech.

Problem, meet solution

“We have the ability to measure TV, we have the ability to measure in digital in pretty reasonable capacities. The question has always been we don't know what the effect of people in between looks like,” says Charlie Allatt, digital strategy director at Kinesso. “Right now, that has never been more of an issue.”

Figuring out frequency across channels, i.e. ensuring people are not over- or underserved ads, is an intrinsically linked challenge.

Hence taking a keen interest in Beatgrid’s technology, which uses a passive-listening mobile phone-based panel app. By making “inaudible pitch shifts” to creative across different screen types, “the system can unwind whether people are being exposed in a particular channel,” says Allatt.

“That means we can tell whether someone has been exposed to that creative in Linear TV, or on YouTube or BVOD, for example,” says Allatt. This is exactly what Kinesso and UM have just trialled with Kmart – while also being able to map the ads served to in-store footfall.

“We could see the difference of people who, within a two-week span, had seen an ad and then gone on into a Kmart store versus the population norm of how people who haven't seen an ad will behave,” says Allatt. “We could directly measure that uplift, we could see it in real time, and we could see it specifically broken down for each channel.”

Measuring against OzTam, DV360

Before getting carried away with the results, “we knew we needed to check it against other sources within their own silos” says Adam Russell, Group Director for Kmart at Universal McCann (UM).

The firm ran the numbers against Google’s DV360 DSP for YouTube ads and against OzTam’s data for linear TV and BVOD. “Both channels tilted very, very closely to the Beatgrid numbers,” says Russell. “That acted as a point of validation, but also a point of optimisation … It gave us a couple of pointers on a couple of areas where we needed to improve [weighting and buying] as well.”

TV measurement data, such as VOZ, which measures BVOD and linear TV, “does a great job in that world,” says Russell. “But it excludes the plethora of other video-on-demand providers – and most importantly for us, it excludes YouTube, which is an integral part of our strategy. Beatgrid pulled all of those things into one place – and that really excited me, because I had the prime candidate for it in Kmart,” he adds, with the retailer’s screens media investment “split roughly evenly between linear and digital”.

Kmart efficiency smarts

Rennie Freer, Kmart’s General Manager of Marketing, was open to trialling the technology.

“We are fundamentally a low-cost operator and a brand that reaches all Australians,” she says. “It’s critical that we play an ‘always on’ role in our media. But we don’t have the money to be in all channels at all times. We need to demonstrate every day that we are [reaching customers] efficiently, ensuring every dollar we invest is performing,” adds Freer.

The Beatgrid trial, “was a great opportunity to do that,” she says. “Because if we're saving dollars here, if what we're doing is really delivering the efficacy we need, we can reinvest in new channels. While there are always more channels to engage with customers, budgets don’t just keep increasing. So we need to be smarter every single day.”

Measuring actual consumption

Engaging and retaining single-source panels requires continuous efforts, achieved through transparent communication about data usage, in-app experiences, or incentivising participants to allow passive data collection (audio, location, and consumption) for brand uplift studies. While this approach demands ongoing investment, Beatgrid’s Australian General Manager, Cameron Curtis, emphasizes that this is the fundamental difference between single-source panels and digital lookalike panels, or “conglomerates of cookies and pixels that track people across the internet and try to apply lookalike profiling on those behaviours.”

Beatgrid, he says, “is recruiting real people, establishing meaningful engagement with them”. That means the output is “their genuine and legitimate behaviour in the way that they consume media – and importantly, the contribution that they make to brand lift and brand sentiment”, adds Curtis.

“It’s based very specifically on their media exposure. That is why single source panels are having a renaissance that is going to continue for a long time – and why we are investing so heavily.”

OzTam, Foxtel take note?

UM’s Group Director for Kmart, Adam Russell, thinks the technology is solving a problem that until now has created both silos and a blinkered mentality.

“We welcome all forms of measurement. But there's something in the fact that Beatgrid is independent. It doesn't live within its silo, you can literally add anything to the mix,” said Russell.

“I think that the other media measurement platforms need to get on board with that. We've been waiting for certain measurement solutions for many years. We first heard of [total TV currency] VOZ long before it came to fruition. In the last couple of weeks, we've heard that Foxtel is moving away from that into its own world of measurement,” he adds.

“But operating in individual siloes is not what the market is asking for. What we – and what our clients want – is consolidated solutions,” says Russell.

“If measurement keeps becoming more and more fragmented, then players like Beatgrid, who pull it all holistically together and work with everyone, are going to win.”

Measure smarter. Beat silos. Beatgrid.co