SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – In 2022, media owners are testing out new ways of measuring their consumption, new currencies with which to sell their inventory.

But, in the alt.currency movement, what exactly makes a good currency?

In this video interview with Jon Watts for Beet.TV at Beet Retreat San Juan 2022, Lisa Ciancarelli, VP, Insights & Analytics, VideoAmp, gives her view.

Three steps to currency

“It’s the dawn of new approaches. It’s an opportunity to solve problems in new ways,” Ciancarelli says. She offers a three-prong definition for currency success:

  1. Methodology: “Currency has to be rooted in a very strong methodology. It has to adhere to accepted conventions and best practises.”
  2. Transparency: “It’s the disclosure of that information, the business rules, the methods behind it. Would you eat something where you didn’t know what was going into it? I think of measurement in the same terms … what is the nutritional value?”
  3. Alignment: “It has to align, it has to work, it has to have flexibility and reflect the needs of the marketplace, and that can change. That is an organic aspect to it.”

Currency explosion

The alt.currency movement is taking off. Amongst recent moves:

  • NBCUniversal says it has picked iSpot.tv as its first cross-platform Certified Measurement Partner for cross-screen video, on a test-and-learn basis.
  • Dentsu tapped VideoAmp to measure ViacomCBS, on a test basis.
  • WarnerMedia selected iSpot.tv, VideoAmp and Comscore to do the same.

In February:

  • Discovery and media-buying agency OMG said they would test new-wave data from VideoAmp and Comscore.
  • Comcast said it would allow VideoAmp to integrate its large dataset.

That is all ushering in a big change from the days of TV being measured by Nielsen panels alone.

The new currency train

Ciancarelli likens the industry’s need to expand from a single measurement provider to the US’ ongoing railroad infrastructure rebuilding, which aims to both modernise transport and to accommodate an expanded passenger populace.

“The legacy measurement tactics that have supported our business, for so very many years, and they’ve done a great job along the way, but the infrastructure is really changing now,” she says.

“Our measurement needs to expand. There’s so much more information we’re capable of capturing, the viewing landscape has grown exponentially. We’re seeing new platforms, new ways of viewing emerging. There’s so much more demand.

“The original infrastructure that we had for measurement and for currency as well, really can’t support that in the same way.”

You are watching coverage from Beet Retreat San Juan 2022, presented by AppScience, Infillion, MadHive, SpringServe, Univision & VideoAmp. For more videos, please visit this page.

By Robert Andrews on @robertandrews