Conviva/ March 29, 2022
This week’s announcement by NBCUniversal sparks the beginning of an innovative, new—and extremely exciting—multi-currency measurement era. We are honored to have been chosen from more than 120 companies as NBCU’s certified streaming measurement partner. For the first time ever, the complex, fragmented world of streaming measurement is unified. It’s comprehensive, census-level, interoperable, continuously measured, and transparent. Advertisers will now understand the independent value of streaming audience and the incremental reach of streaming audiences through cross-platform currencies based on Conviva’s certified Continuous Measurement Analytics technology.
“We have an obligation to deliver consumers a great experience, and an obligation to our customers and shareholders to utilize measurement systems that adequately capture the reach, attention, and outcomes we deliver. For the first time, NBCU is bringing its advertising partners a unified cross-screen view across all platforms with access to meaningful metrics that matter to their businesses.” — Kelly Abcarian, Measurement & Impact EVP at NBCU
So, what does this announcement mean to the streaming industry broadly? There are many implications, but I will share the three most important.
1. Continuous and comprehensive
Streaming measurement is incredibly challenging because this world is so fragmented by geography, device, app, viewer, content, ads—and gets more complicated as technology grows and changes. At Conviva, we solve this problem with a single sensor that comprehensively and continuously collects everything the viewer experiences, including content and advertising. This foundation allowed NBCU to independently measure streaming second by second and day by day for all 17 days of the Beijing Winter Olympics, giving advertisers a complete picture of their performance across all screens.
2. Census-level
In the linear TV and 90s-era web world, measurement relied on panels, sample sets, beacons, ad logs, or event-based collection, such as those used by Adobe, Oracle, or Google Analytics. Streaming offers us a reset on measurement. We don’t have to rely on partial views of the session, the event, or the audience. We safely measure every second of every stream for every viewer. Add census-level to continuous, comprehensive collection and you can see why the premium publisher world, led by NBCU, sees value in Conviva’s technology and measurement. This is more than just new technology, it’s about a new beginning.
3. Interoperable
When AdWeek released NBCU’s 150M Super Bowl total audience reach, it was the interoperability of Coniva’s platform which helped to deliver on this essential, unified cross-screen view. What do we mean by interoperability? Insights are far more powerful when they can be standardized, integrated, and utilized by the entire industry. This opens the door to a multi-currency ratings world. So, we enabled NBCU’s streaming data to be truly interoperable in ways they now fully control. The interoperable nature of Conviva’s measurement will allow NBCU to integrate streaming into every aspect of their advertising products over time, including packaging, delivery, and stewardship—and with the full control necessary in today’s identity- and privacy -minded environment.
In Conclusion
NBCU is leading the audience measurement revolution in many ways, and all of us at Conviva are proud to contribute to the innovation needed to finally solve the 70-year-old challenge in media measurement.