Comscore announces advancements in cross-screen media measurement

Monday, October 26th, 2020
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Forward-looking approach centers on audience- and impression-based currency, enhanced addressable advertising capabilities, outcome-based attribution, Exact Commercial Ratings® and solutions solving for cookieless world

RESTON, Va. — As Comscore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a trusted partner for planning, transacting, and evaluating media across platforms is on the precipice of entering its second decade of delivering groundbreaking census-representative TV measurement, the company is excited to reveal its comprehensive vision and product innovation that will shape the next generation of audience and advertising measurement.

The update comes as Comscore continues to deliver on advancing the common TV impression-based currency that leverages its unmatched advanced audience insights and its Exact Commercial Ratings® solution that captures specific TV commercial performance rather than averages.

“We are at an inflection point in media and advertising, and the events of this unique year have accelerated the evolution of media measurement,” said Bill Livek, CEO, Comscore. “These rapid changes mean that consistency in measurement across the premium video footprint – from linear to digital to OTT TV entertainment – has never been more critical. Comscore has reinvented its approach by building a currency designed for this new era, where media, agencies and advertisers are taking an audience-centric and outcome-based approach to planning and buying across myriad platforms and requiring impressions to evaluate their success regardless of where content and advertising are viewed by consumers.”

“As the 21st century matures to its 21st year, it’s clear that TV and media measurement will never be the same,” added Chris Wilson, Chief Commercial Officer, Comscore. “With television content continuing to become cross-platform in nature, we are seeing television media buying and selling shift away from age/gender and GRPs to audiences and impression-based measurement, and this is where Comscore is poised to deliver.”

“We are focused on currency because that’s how agencies, advertisers and programmers are using our information to reach their consumers across a myriad of platforms, and the reality is that Comscore is being used as currency in the local, national and addressable television marketplaces,” said Carol Hinnant, Chief Revenue Officer, Comscore. “The traditional approach using only age and gender demos no longer meets advertisers’ needs, as they increasingly want to understand the deduplicated reach of their TV and digital spend and bring their own first-party data to help inform their media decisions.”

As the next generation of media measurement is developed, the lines between TV and digital continue to fade away. Addressable advertising is the best example of how traditional TV and digital can work in a similar fashion.

Comscore spent the second half of 2020 working on bringing national programmer’s minutes together with the largest MVPDs and Connected TV (CTV) providers to provide measurement of national addressable inventory. This MVPD/CTV-centric approach enables measurement for more than 50 million households, which is the largest footprint of addressable households. Comscore expects to be fully enabled and operationalized in 2021 to bring the first independently-measured national addressable advertising service to buyers and sellers, allowing clients to use television at the impression-level for national addressable inventory and to reconcile with the non-addressed minutes.

As a reflection of its ongoing commitment to innovation, expansion and client empowerment, Comscore is launching or enhancing an array of substantial offerings in 2021, including:

  • Comscore TV™, including the integration of over 10 million additional households into our measurement footprint
  • Local and National Cross-Platform
  • National Addressable
  • Additional Leading Edge First Party Privacy-Focused Solutions for a Cookieless World
  • Outcome-Based Attribution

As the digital market has matured and more and more premium video is available in the digital ecosystem, the demand for more accountability and better tools to monetize inventory has emerged. Comscore’s best-in-class CTV contextual solutions go beyond brand safety and allow our clients to increase their monetization through enhanced direct sales, open exchange programmatic sales and first party cookie enrichment. This focus fits with Comscore’s partnership with LiveRamp to develop new and innovative privacy-focused services across the advertising ecosystem.

“For the past 10 years, Comscore has been a pioneer in measurement innovation across platforms, and we are excited to launch these latest product enhancements,” said David Algranati, Chief Product Officer, Comscore. “We will continue our consistent pattern of innovation in media measurement, as evidenced by patents granted and filed in 2020 including for cross-platform household viewership aggregation and household device identification.”

“This might be the most promising moment in Comscore’s 20-year history of media measurement innovation, and we’re just getting started,” said Livek.