UPDATE (February 7, 2022):

TVSquared announced it has signed a deal to be acquired for $160 million by Innovid, which raised money by going public in December.

The pair say the deal creates “a new currency-grade standard for cross-platform measurement, powered by the scale and automation of an independent global ad server”.

With TVSquared CEO and founder Calum Smeaton stepping down, TVSquared president Jo Kinsella joins the Innovid executive team, reporting to Innovid CEO Zvika Netter and leading its measurement division.

EARLIER POST:

LOS ANGELES — As we enter 2022, it looks like being a year of proliferation in the number of TV measurement currencies being offered.

Agencies and distributors alike are beginning to test their own cross-screen complements to Nielsen.

But, in this interview recorded at Beet Retreat Santa Monica for Beet.TV, Jo Kinsella, President, TVSquared, says executives need to let go of a number of beliefs if the industry is to move forward.

Keep it simple

“It’s hard,” Kinsella says. “That being said, if we were to just sit and accept the mediocre, which is what the TV industry has been doing for the last 30 years, we’re never going to move forward.

TVSquared helps brands learn how TV advertising is driving traffic to their websites.

The company’s recent report The State of Converged TV:
A Look at Global Trends & Adoption surveyed more than a thousand ad buyers, finding more than 75% now believe “TV” comprises both linear and streaming variants.

Despite the industry contorting itself to accommodate cross-screen viewing, Kinsella is calling for simplification in an industry she says is often too keen to over-complicate.

Step away from the measure

With many industry players now testing alternatives and complements to Nielsen, some think the future will be about accommodating multiple measurement systems.

But Kinsella says TV producers and distributors should not be marking their own homework by launching currencies of their own.

“If you produce content and you buy and sell media, you cannot measure it,” she argues. “We want the content providers and the programmers to keep producing awesome television.”

Stay in lane

Rather, says Kinsella: “We need horizontal ecosystem of giant platform players globally like TVSquared to be doing the measurement…

“The ego stuff is still a problem. Like when we think about identity, everyone wants to come out with their own ID, everyone wants it to be their idea.

“I urge everybody, let the software companies come and figure out the currency and the audience and the attribution and the outcomes, and let the TV companies focus on what they’re best at, which is producing content, and let the marketers focus on what they’re best at, which is customer experience and the consumer and pulling together are a fabulous consumer experience.

Squaring the circle

One of the TVSquared’s two main software pieces is ADvantage, a platform providing offering insight in to how each TV impression drives revenue through online, mobile and second screen for advertisers looking for accurate same-day TV attribution.

The company’s Predict tool helps advertisers automate the creation of their buy specifications based on predictive analysis of historical attribution data that is optimized, whether the objective is to generate sales, registrations, web site visits or any other kind of response.

You are watching coverage from Beet Retreat Santa Monica 2021, presented by FreeWheel, IRIS.TV, Samba TV, TransUnion & Warner Music Group. For more videos, please visit this page.

By Robert Andrews on @robertandrews