By David L. Smith
President and Media Director
Mediasmith, Inc.  

A few short years ago, at an early advisory board meeting for a small start-up called Internet Profiles (I/PRO), it was suggested that the Internet could be "the most measurable of all media" in a short year or two. That statement demonstrates the hubris of the early days of the Internet, when everyone felt bulletproof. We were riding the wave to the future. Heck, we felt that we were the future. The rest, as they say, is history. Along the way, most companies were so busy trying to catch the brass ring that not nearly enough was done to drive the meaningful standards that would even put the Internet on a par with other industries, let alone give it metrics superiority.

Those of us who are Internet friendly are much more humble these days. You hear phrases like "comparability with other media." Sure, the Internet will always have its unique properties, as do all media. But the emphasis these days is one of finding out how the Internet works in the overall media and marketing mix, not as an answer in and of itself.

Fast-forward from the early days to two years ago in a seminal meeting at the ARF to discuss what could be done relative to online reach and frequency. A number of issues surfaced, not the least of which was the misuse of the term reach (confusing it with cume potential) by the Internet rating services. Some of the most knowledgeable people in the business agreed that the ARF represented a good platform to attempt to drive some new standards. From this seminal meeting, the ARF Online R/F committee was born. The committee got off to a rocky start after 9/11 but finally met in March of 2002. During the first meeting, presentations were made by key vendors and stakeholders in the R/F landscape. Discussion was held relative to the merits of UCM (user centric measurement or the rating companies) based R/F vs. SCM (server centric measurement or the third party ad servers) based R/F. UCM gives us cume potential and demographics but no clear ad exposure measure. SCM gives us a universe (as opposed to a sample) of all impressions served in a campaign with paired duplication for the campaign, rather than just the site paired duplication. This is important, as the Internet is the only medium where commercial audience is not of the same magnitude as content audience. More than thirty people agreed that the best solution would NOT be single source but some form of combination of the two data sources. For more information on this, see the draft of the ARF Online R/F White Paper currently in circulation.

As mentioned above, the initial group, which was intended to be 8-10 people, grew to over 30 by the time the first meeting occurred. The committee met several times in 2002 and quickly blossomed to over fifty members. Quite unwieldy for a committee! Several initiatives have come out of the initial meetings: the white paper and a pilot study that would help to get a better handle on the issues surrounding paired duplication and the ability of UCMs vs. SCMs to pick up this information in their collection of data. The pilot study has commenced, with cooperation by Nielsen NetRatings, comScore Media Metrix, DoubleClick, and Atlas DMT. Leslie Wood and Roger Baron will disseminate information about this study at the annual meeting and at the next OMC meeting on 6/2. Which brings me to the Online Media Council (OMC). Due to the overwhelming interest in the Interactive medium and related metrics issues, the powers that be in the ARF have seen fit to establish this council out of the membership in the Online R/F Committee and other interested parties. The first meeting took place in February and was quite lively. In addition to reports on the white paper and the pilot study, the group talked about other priorities for the council.

The Online Media Council's mission is to promote the establishment of accurate, reliable, and acceptable measurements in the areas of planning, buying, and assessing the efficacy of online media as marketing tools.

In addition to the online R/F committee, other committees are foreseen on the subjects of online planning, buying, and efficacy. The purviews of the planning and buying committees are self-evident. An online efficacy committee would address the questions: Does online advertising work? Is online a good direct response medium? (Some people actually have questions about this.)  Is it a good branding medium? Work is currently being done by groups like the IAB, OPA, and on the sites of MSN and iMedia to document the efficacy of the Web. One of the goals of the efficacy committee will be to pull all of this work together with the respective stakeholders and publish a book where senior client executives and others could access the evidence in one place.

We also asked the council to suggest other issues to address. Attendees came up with the following:

Data ownership
Impression definition
Definition of key online metrics
Prioritization of key online metrics 
Effective frequency online
Qualitative issues (size comparatives)
Online universe definition-synchronize universe-align with other media and understand differences
How to package online inventory (How to buy and sell based on audience)
Difference between server- and panel-based measurements
Online planning workflow
Survey definitions (network, site, property, etc.)
Syndicated content (Rollups based on content? Advertising?)
Spam
Ad blocking vs. audience measurement
Map online metrics onto ARF model
Validation of R/F systems (pre-buy, plan, during, post-buy)
Cost -- benchmark cost database

An ad-hoc committee will prioritize these issues and we will discuss next steps in greater length at the next OMC meeting on June 2. Please let Linda Mallon Faber or Gabe Samuels know if you would like to attend/be involved.

© Copyright 2003, by The ARF