Quantcast announced a recent deal with MTV Networks in which Quantcast will offer “audience targeting capabilities on sites in MTVN’s domestic online portfolio, including MTV.com, VH1.com, ComedyCentral.com and Spike.com, as well as on partner sites in the company’s Tribes vertical ad network.” Read the release.
Quantcast CRO Todd Teresi discussed the announcement and its cross-channel, cross-digital potential with AdExchanger.com.
AdExchanger.com: MTVN contains some of the biggest brands in media today and this particular deal involves video inventory only. It would make sense that the deal expands into display or even marry to digital TV and the set-top box at some point giving buyers access to the same audience across all channels. How close is Quantcast to providing this type of cross-digital-channel buying and/or audience measurement service?
TT: Today, the MTVN deal includes all of their display inventory in addition to the video based inventory. With Quantcast integrated into its ad server, the MTV sales organization can now provide their marketing partners with access to audiences from a variety of demographics as well as enable marketers to find their own proprietary audiences that they have built within the Quantcast Audience system. At Quantcast, we see our platform as a way to connect publishers and advertisers across any ip-connected digital media assets. To carry through with this vision, last year we announced a partnership with TIVO that has proven our ability to connect audiences across the web with those on the TIVO set-top boxes giving marketers unparalleled opportunities to understand their consumer engagement across mediums and the resulting impact of their marketing campaigns in both mediums. Continuing our pursuit of the connected digital market, in January we announced an investment from Cisco, a leading supplier of web infrastructure and set-top boxes, and we are excited about the opportunities that lie before us. Finally, we recently released our Mobile Web Report showcasing some early work that we have done to begin to better understand the mobile consumer space. We see a bright future in creating value for publisher and advertisers by connecting them to the audiences that matter most to them across all digital mediums.
In a Mediaweek article, you say that Comscore’s panel system is not allowing for efficient media buying because media buyers who would be interested in a particular audience end up buying the audience they don’t want, too – creating waste. Does audience measurement need to merge with media buying to be effective? Would you say they need to be one in the same?
With the proliferation of digital technology, everything becomes addressable. This means that all content, whether advertising or publishing, can be delivered on a one to one basis and customized to the consumers interests and desires. To realize the full potential of this opportunity, our understanding of the consumer must evolve from the historic panel and proxy based approach found in the incumbent measurement companies to a more informed census based measurement model that has predictive capabilities at an impression by impression level while respecting a consumer’s privacy. The future of measurement is an integrated supply chain where impression level audience data is integrated within the advertising and content servers to enable delivery of the proprietary audiences that marketers and publishers build for each product and consumer engagement that they desire.
Is it right to say that a typical publisher is beginning to understand and accept the data cooperative model, if you will, where audience data from other sites informs media buyers about the demographics on their own site – and, moreover, their site’s data informs buyers of audience on other sites?
With over 10 million web destinations now participating in the Quantcast Measurement service, including over 2/3rds of the top 100 publishers, and hundreds joining on a daily basis, we would say that the adoption speaks for itself. Additionally with all 10 of the major agencies now using the service, we feel that marketers are now embracing the importance of audience level planning and delivery. However, to clarify, all publishers who participate in our measurement program have complete control over their own data and no individual publisher or advertiser’s data can be accessed by another without the explicit consent of that advertiser or publisher. Unlike many data companies and ad networks, Quantcast never resells an advertiser’s or publisher’s audience to another third party so all of our advertisers and publishers can use Quantcast with peace of mind.
By John Ebbert
