Barb, the UK’s primary TV measurement body, has this morning announced the launch of overnight commercial spot ratings in beta, enabling advertisers to get a preliminary measure of their ads’ performance the day after they air. While Barb already reports on linear commercial spot audiences eight days after airing, the measurement body says advertisers’ expectations around reporting speed have increased, given their ability to monitor digital campaigns in real time. The launch of overnight commercial reporting will help close this gap, giving advertisers a quicker understanding of how campaigns are performing, and enabling them to work with broadcasters more rapidly to ensure their goals are achieved.
Barb already reports preliminary overnight ratings for programmes broadcast by the channels it measures, which are updated after eight days when broadcasters provide their own commercial logs. Now, through a collaboration with Clearcast and Adsignal, preliminary ratings for individual ads will also be available overnight. As with Barb’s programme ratings, they will be finalised eight days later. As such, any data fields generated by the broadcasters, including break type, the broadcaster’s spot number, the preceding programme name and the succeeding programme name, won’t be available in the overnight reports.
AdSignal’s technology will be used to monitor the majority of Barb-measured commercial channels, and detect ads which are aired on those channels. These ads will then be matched with Clearcast’s ad library, identifying which ads aired, and this data — matched with Barb’s measurement — will be used to report on each individual ad. Ratings will be accessible to clients via the Barb API and all Barb-subscribing data bureaux, including TechEdge, MediaOcean, TRP, RSMB, Digital-I, MediaSense, and Nielsen.
A long-standing demand
There will be some limits to these overnight reports. Not all ads run on commercial channels are part of the Clearcast library, since some are cleared outside the UK or accepted by broadcasters directly. Any ads which aren’t in the Clearcast library won’t be available in overnight logs, but they are available in the final reports eight days later. Linear targeted ads, like those delivered through Sky’s Adsmart, also won’t be included, and targeted impacts won’t be discounted in overnight logs, meaning the reach of some linear spots might be slightly overestimated. Again, this is cleared up in the final reports after eight days.
Barb also says that most, but not all Barb-reported commercial stations are covered in the overnight reports. However channel coverage is prioritised based on commercial impacts, and Barb says the channels included in overnight logs account for roughly 98 percent of all commercial impacts which it reports daily. And overall, the limitations of the overnight reports are small compared to the benefits which come from speedier reporting.
Jim Jarrett, Barb’s head of research operations, says this update gives media agencies and advertisers earlier insight into how their campaigns are performing, making it easier to adjust and optimise their wider campaigns more promptly. “This meets the long-standing demand from our clients to make TV ad campaign reporting more accountable, responsive and time sensitive,” he said.
Dan Flynn, deputy research director at agency trade group the IPA, agreed. “Agencies have long been asking for a single file which gives an earlier and more accurate picture of commercial audiences,” he said. “This development is a welcome step in modernising trading systems and will mean that TV campaign performance can be assessed sooner than ever before.”
Follow VideoWeek on LinkedIn.
