NBCU Unveils Cross-Platform Ad Metric

NBCUniversal today announced what it calls the industry’s “first unified advertising metric, measuring all live, on-demand and time-shifted commercial impressions on every viewing platform.”

Called CFlight, the new metric delivers NBCUniversal’s advertising clients the most comprehensive representation of their marketing campaign’s advertising exposures within full episodes of shows across all screens. Additionally, NBCUniversal will use this metric to create a new currency, guaranteeing campaign performance in the company’s programming, especially where significant audience consumption is on digital platforms.

This impressions-based metric will be based on a composite score developed from independent, third party sources to equate linear and digital media viewing.

With this unified advertising metric, NBCUniversal says it is “raising the bar for the industry and creating the industry’s first cross platform advertising metric that only counts digital impressions that are viewed to completion. By doing this, NBCU is addressing marketers’ objective of holding digital to the same high standards that television currently delivers on.” Additionally, like TV, the new digital impressions metric will include co-viewing on platforms where it is measurable.

“Consumer behavior has changed the way our content is consumed, and it’s time for metrics to catch up and show the true power of premium video,” said Linda Yaccarino, chairman, advertising and client partnerships, NBCUniversal. “Using the Olympics to measure all screens and provide an accurate count of our audiences was just the beginning. As our industry questions the strength of digital-first advertising, we are guaranteeing that campaigns running around NBCUniversal content, regardless of platform, are reaching true, valuable audiences at scale.”

CFlight will employ the industry’s widely-accepted measurement sources by platform, including Nielsen, ComScore, Moat and others. Included in this composite measurement is co-viewing on OTT platforms where measurement is enabled, including Roku and NBCUniversal content on Hulu. OTT now represents more than one third of NBCUniversal’s long-form, digital video consumption. Additionally, as the shift in video consumption continues, NBCUniversal is committed to working with measurement partners and publishers to drive future innovation around delivering an accurate cross platform measurement solution for the industry.

“Since the start of time-shifted and TV anywhere viewing, GroupM has championed expanded audience measurement, first C3 and then C7, to capture the total audiences of our partners’ programs and our clients’ advertising,” said Lyle Schwartz, chief investment officer, GroupM. “NBCU’s move is a step in the right direction, consistent with work we’ve being doing market-wide to get to measurement of commercial viewing, in addition to more complete program ratings. Measurement must keep up with the fluidity of consumption to justify our clients’ investments.”

“As consumers continue to shift their viewing seamlessly across platforms, it is essential for us to develop measurement and currency that counts and values those audiences in a similar manner,” said David Cohen, president, North America, Magna. “NBCU has taken a significant step forward in developing a methodology that capitalizes on linear television currency, and enhances it with industry-leading digital measurement to arrive at a universal view. We are eager to continue to pioneer this space with NBCU as we push the pace of innovation in the cross-screen measurement arena.”

“Consumers engage with the premium content they love – and the brands that sponsor that content – across a complex web of screens, applications and platforms,” said John Swift, CEO, investment and integrated services North America, Omnicom Media Group. “CFlight is an important step towards better measurement in a cross-platform video environment. We believe measurement which reflects the nuances inherent with each of these very different consumer viewing environments is a crucial prerequisite to optimizing cross-platform advertising efficiency.”

This effort, NBCU said, “will enable marketers and agencies to plan and buy across all video, regardless of platform or format; as well as address the shift in consumption of our content across multiple platforms.”

NBCUniversal also said it will also commit to deliver post-campaign metrics and reporting that combine both linear and digital delivery across all platforms.

A Nielsen spokesman had the following comment:  “Nielsen’s commitment to evolving measurement of the media landscape has been unwavering over the past 68 years, and is even more resolute in the face of rapid fragmentation that we see today. We support NBCU’s efforts to evolve measurement, and Nielsen’s TV and digital ad currency play a critical role. We’ve been working closely with NBCU and other key industry leaders on solutions to expand the currency definition so that it takes into account cross-device consumer viewing behavior as well as media owners’ desire for more flexibility in receiving currency credit for audiences to ads. NBCU’s announcement today is a reflection of this work, and we look forward to our continued partnership as we collectively develop and implement new innovations in measurement.”