1. R/F at the strategic level: This application would permit quick, broad stroke strategies to be developed much the same way we look at other media strategically. The reach and frequency data for these strategies would then be combined with reach and frequency data for other media either manually or through the use of an optimizer. The first two companies providing offerings are IMS and Telmar. IMS and Telmar have historically been used by agency media operations. They make resources like MRI for print available for cross tabs, efficiency analyses and R/F comparisons within traditional media and on a cross media basis. Their TV R/F capabilities are based on the Nielsen TV cume study and their radio capabilities are based on ARB. IMS has a greater customer base with U.S. agencies but Telmar has a healthy U.S. market and is stronger overseas. To compete with the already in use IMS WebRF, Telmar has developed WebPlan for Web cross-tab analyses and R/F. Both services have very mature cross-media analysis capabilities that permit media planners to compare media and combine them in R/F analyses. Media planners will use these capabilities heavily in order to show clients how much Web activity should be used in the media mix, and where the strengths of the Web are demographically to complement the current media mix. We believe that this tool, combined with the maturation of rich media and the availability of Web and cross media awareness studies from companies like Dynamic Logic represent the future for establishing the efficacy of the Web in a branding media plan.

2. R/F at the planning or pre-buy level: The offerings in the market today from IMS, Telmar and Atlas bring this capability to the desktop already. In the upcoming months, the media agency and the seller will be able to choose their interface and their databases to use in examining alternative plans and buys. (See my previous articles in this space to understand more about these offerings.)

3. Tracking R/F delivery as the campaign is running: We know that the Web is unique in that we can measure many things not available for other media. Tracking reach and frequency delivery as the campaign is running is not currently available but the technology clearly exists or can be tweaked to do this. The third party ad servers already have such tools in place from an overall impression standpoint. Services like Atlas DMT and DoubleClick's MediaVisor, working with UCMs (user centric measurement companies like comScore and NetRatings) should, in the near future, be able to provide buyers with the ability to watch the R/F of a buy accumulate. It will then be possible to understand whether or not the sites are allocating inventory the way the buyer anticipated they would. The buyer would have the ability to go back to the site and instruct the site to provide a broader rotation (to raise the reach accumulation) or tighten up the rotation (to raise frequency levels) while the buy is going on. This has never been possible for any other medium. In this manner, R/F optimization is born as the sister of back-end optimization based on CPA for DR campaigns.

   Tracking R/F accumulation while the campaign is running is especially important as the much-ballyhooed concept of frequency capping for a campaign has recently been uncovered to be undeliverable. Many of us have bought into the concept of frequency capping based on sales pitches by the third party ad servers. But the reality is that their technology and that of others is based on frequency of exposure of a single ad, not a campaign. This is better control than we have on other media but is not what it seems on the surface. Once that ad reaches its cap, another ad from the same advertiser is substituted. Thus, the overall campaign can have no cap under the current system. Individual sites also can cap frequency for a specific advertiser's campaign if they serve all of the ads. But in order for frequency capping to be executed across a whole campaign of multiple sites, a universal cookie will need to be deployed. This concept could be executed but it would need to have cooperation from all of the major vendors and be carefully constructed so as to avoid any privacy issues.

4. R/F on a post-analysis basis: This capability is already in use by most third party ad servers (3PAS) on a gross impression basis. Overlay of the UCM data and parsing the data for individual country geography is all that remains to put this data on the same basis as the planning/pre-buy analyses. As has been stated before, herein lies the proof in the pudding. The debate as to which databases are precise (within the acceptable range of variations of media research), whether SCM and UCM data must be combined to get reliable predictive R/F data and which vendors have the right overall algorithms in place will be born out by post-analyses. If the actual campaign results are consistent with the planned/pre-buy R/F, then we will finally have a system in place that can be counted on to serve us in the years to come.

What's next? I suggest that you get the tools on your desktop and test them. All of the vendors (see my last article for a more complete list) want to sell you their system. But most will permit a short desktop trial against real business so that you can see the benefits. The market needs to speak out and determine which of the systems work best for their needs. While we don't yet have all of the capabilities outlined above, we do have robust strategic, planning and pre-buy tools that merit attention. Only through active participation in the process can you ensure that you will get the right tools for the future. To that end, Mediasmith is going to test as many of these options as are made available and hope to talk about each of them in greater length in a future article. Watch this space for more news.