While it might not replace the MRC, the JIC may be faster. The MRC, while it long has had published cross-platform measurement standards in place, has under review the re-accreditation of Nielsen panel-based TV measurement and Digital Ad Ratings, plus new applications for Comscore TV measurement and one component of iSpot.tv’s measurement. But audits have yet to begin on components of Nielsen One—intended to be used as currency by the 2024 upfronts—and other measurement players, including VideoAmp, have yet to begin the audit process. There’s no guarantee those audits will all begin, much less be completed, by May 2024.

“Remember Nielsen One is a new currency, just as VideoAmp is a new currency, just as iSpot is a new currency,” he said. “They don't have any, built-in advantage necessarily just because they're called Nielsen. It's an entirely different viewing data set. It's an entirely different set of capabilities and protocols and those need to be evaluated put under a microscope for us to look at.”

Wellness brands, diet plans, weight loss companies… you can’t count on what they’re calling themselves these days, but you can depend on their annual New Year’s resolution campaigns. Between Dec. 26 and Jan. 5, weight loss brands spent $41.9 million on linear TV ads alone, according to iSpot.

Vicks, best known for its cough and cold relief drugs, had the most impressions of any Rx or OTC pharma brand last month, according to data from iSpot.tv released Monday afternoon, while severe asthma treatment Dupixent led the way for 2022 as a whole.

Vicks achieved an impressions share of voice (SOV) of 7.17% among Rx brands, far ahead of second-place finisher Rinvoq at 4.26%. Vicks also had an estimated national TV ad spend of $16.2 million during the month, favoring CBS as their top network and The Price is Right as their top show.

Breakthrough innovation from startups in the audience-measurement supply chain, including one that NBCU ultimately ended up certifying as its currency -- iSpot -- following extensive test-and-learn trials with its biggest advertisers and agencies.

It started with one of NBCU’s biggest tentpole events -- the Super Bowl -- and culminated with another, its coverage of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, before iSpot ultimately was certified as its national cross-media advertising currency for the 2022-23 upfront buying season.

After conducting a joint study with iSpot to benchmark the phenomenon, and publishing the results -- finding that overall, 8-10% of all streaming ad impressions were delivered with the consumer’s TV turned off -- GroupM began organizing a coalition of major media suppliers, clients and other agencies to create new industry standards for streaming viewability and CTV measurement.

Marketers are, of course, increasingly obsessed with amassing and deploying consumer data. But Truthset thinks that the marketing world needs to take a step back and first consider the accuracy of all that data—because a lot of it may be seriously flawed.

Toward that end, the San Francisco-based firm just launched the Truthset Data Collective, comprised of 20 players in the data space—including Epsilon, Verisk, Fluent, Alliant and TargetSmart—that are together focused on “validating the accuracy of consumer data,” per the group’s mission statement.

Data from iSpot reveals Nissan (and Brie Larson) accounted for three of five most-seen automaker ads in 2022, led by “Today Is Made For Thrill: Why Wait For Tomorrow?” The spot, which started airing on April 1, bought nearly 11% of its TV ad impressions during NBA games, and (partly as a result) 10.5% of impressions were delivered by ABC programming.

From September 2021 to May 2022, US sports betting operators spent an estimated $282m on TV advertisements, according to an iSpot.TV report released in June 2022.

The combined advertising generated more than 18 billion impressions and, iSpot noted, over one-third of sportsbook advertising impressions were local ads. This validates our previous position that a state-by-state marketing approach is imperative due to the advantages of localization.

And TVREV co-founder and analyst Alan Wolk expects the CTV OS wars will be the most important battle in streaming for 2023, though most of the action is happening outside the U.S.

TVOS is a big deal, Wolk wrote in a January 3 blog, because with ownership of the smart TV interface also comes power.

“They are the gatekeepers for programming: which apps to allow on the interface, how easy they are to find, how much those programmers have to pay to have their content featured on the home screen,” wrote Wolk. “Owning the OS also gives those companies a lot of data about program and ad viewership that they can both monetize and use to improve the consumer experience.”

A few highlights: Frontier thinks you should “uncable yourself” and instead get fiber internet. Proactiv, the skincare brand, serves up an enthusiastic testimonial from an actual customer named Charlotte. And FreshDirect says, “Why settle for food delivered, when you can have food that delivers you?”

But while the measurement firm worked on bridging its digital and linear metrics, its competitors were stealing a march. Broadcasters struck deals with rival measurement companies – Warner Bros. Discovery with VideoAmp; NBCUniversal with iSpot – trialling the alternative currencies during the 2022 upfronts season.

In particular, TV spending is falling. For the three-month period ending Dec. 12, real estate brands spent $160.3 million on national TV ads, an 11% drop from the year-earlier period, ad measurement firm iSpot.tv found.

In March of 2022, NBC Universal signed an agreement with yet another Nielsen rival, iSpot TV, which uses a variety of technologies – including ACR integrations in cable boxes and smart TVs – to compile its statistics. Unlike many of its other competitiors, iSpot also generates extensive audience survey data, including sentiment around individual creative choices, emotional reactions to specific content and attention-based metrics like “likeability” and “watchability.”

Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day were a bonanza for TV networks running live sports, delivering an estimated $604 million revenue, notes SBJ’s David Broughton after analyzing data from iSpot.tv.

WBD owns a number of top-rated ad supported cable networks as well as streamers HBO Max and Discovery+ which are expected to merge later this year. WDB will continue to also use Nielsen data. There are several other audience measurement providers including ComscoreSCOR +2.1% and iSpot also competing with Nielsen. At this time, the audience measurement components of VideoAmp, Comscore and iSpot are also not accredited by the MRC.

The holiday season was kind to networks, as advertising around sports telecasts on Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day delivered an estimated $604 million in ad revenue, according to an analysis of iSpot.tv data by SBJ’s David Broughton.

Christmas Day was big for brand spending, as sports telecasts saw $322.7 million worth of TV ads (80% of all TV ad spending that day). A slate of three NFL games ($230.47 million) and five NBA matchups ($72 million) took the bulk of that money. Across those NFL/NBA games, Pfizer was the biggest brand spender at just over $6.8 million, followed closely by HBO Max.

iSpot, the TV measurement company, today released its 2022 TV advertising report, containing exclusive insights from currency initiatives with TV networks, findings from CTV verification studies and tallies from measuring every second of advertising on linear, time shifted and VOD on TV.

The report contains rankings by ad impressions and spend for top networks, shows, industries and reveals actionable insights such as where brands obtained the most reach for the dollar, the optimal mix for streaming and linear, what creatives scored highest for various emotions and more.

Total TV advertising impressions in 2022 from linear, streaming and local programming were down 3.5% versus the year before to 8.0 trillion, according to iSpot.tv.

Although impressions dipped for legacy TV last year, iSpot says national TV advertising spend grew 6% to $45.36 billion.

While funding dried up, advertisers’ spending on influencers continued to grow, as we had forecast. The number of campaigns influencers ran with advertisers rose 50% last year from 2021, according to influencer marketing firm CreatorIQ. However, as the economic downturn continues this year, it’s not yet clear how much the pullback in advertising spending will cut into influencer marketing deals.