Cross-Platform Measurement Service, Combining Five Platforms of TV, Radio, Desktop, Smartphone and Tablet

comScore in collaboration with the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), announced plans to expand its pioneering cross-platform measurement service, the industry’s first to provide continuous unified measurement of media usage on a national scale across TV, radio, desktop, smartphone and tablet. This next phase will enable media companies, marketers and advertising agencies the opportunity to experience the service for their brands and will be open to participation from CIMM member companies as well as non-CIMM members. Participating CIMM member companies include ESPN, Disney ABC Television Group, Fox Broadcasting Co., NBC Universal, CBS Corporation, A&E Networks, Turner Broadcasting System Inc., Univision Communications Inc., Viacom, Publicis Groupe, GroupM, and Omnicom Media Group, among others.

This expanded offering is highlighted by the development of several important new capabilities, including the measurement of:

•     Multi-platform advertising
•     Mobile video
•     Time-shifted viewing (i.e. DVR playback)
•     Children’s viewing

These innovations build upon comScore’s pioneering methods of addressing the cross-platform measurement challenge during its initial phase, known as Project Blueprint. This initial proof of concept, done in collaboration with Arbitron and ESPN, expanded comScore’s existing multi-platform audience de-duplication methodology for desktop, smartphone and tablet internet usage to TV and radio in order to deliver the industry’s first unified view of these five major media platforms.

The expanded cross-platform measurement service will be the only one of its kind to leverage both person-level TV viewing data (obtained via the Portable People Meter technology licensed from Nielsen Audio) and Set-Top Box viewing data, which includes viewing behavior from more than 5 million households. The service also leverages a state-of-the-art technology using both panel and census-based methods to accurately measure online and mobile video viewing, addressing increasingly important components of the TV/video landscape. Reporting will deliver granular metrics at the network, show and telecast level that accounts for long tail viewing, thereby providing the scale required by media companies and advertisers. Comparable cross-media metrics, such as duplicated and unduplicated audience size and composition, duration, reach/frequency, and GRPs/TRPs, will also be featured in the reporting provided to clients.

Serge Matta, President of comScore said: “In teaming with CIMM and our other collaborators, we look forward to expanding our cross-platform measurement service to help solve the media industry’s foremost challenge of measuring audiences for content and advertising in today’s multi-platform world. The expansion of this service seeks to address some of the more important challenges, such as multi-platform ad exposure and measurement of mobile video and time-shifted video. With accurate accounting of media consumption at a granular level across all the major media platforms, brands will now have the opportunity to understand their audiences in a more holistic fashion.”

Jane Clarke, Managing Director, CIMM, commented: “As an industry alliance, CIMM is focused on identifying and fostering new methodologies and approaches that can help improve cross-platform audience media measurement for the entire media ecosystem. CIMM played an early role in funding and conducting cross-platform research, which ultimately brought comScore, Arbitron and ESPN together to collaborate on a successful five-platform measurement service, Blueprint. Now, CIMM is eager to bring other CIMM member companies together to work with comScore to determine the feasibility of syndicating the service industry-wide.”

Artie Bulgrin, SVP of Global Research + Analytics, ESPN said: “We are proud to have initiated Blueprint and play an integral role in its development — helping to drive innovation to address our media measurement challenges. We have always said that the goal of our initial investment was to develop a solution that could ultimately work across the entire industry, and so it’s gratifying to see Blueprint take another step towards that goal. We are hopeful this will move cross-platform media measurement from custom project to standard practice.”