In TV over the last couple of years, one of the hottest topics has been the emergence of alternative currency and measurement barometers with which TV ads can be traded.

Many broadcasters have begun offering buyers alternatives to Nielsen, ones that can also document cross-screen viewing.

Now, one of the main suppliers of such systems says he believes many advertisers, at the coming TV upfronts season, are ready to fully make a clean break.

All-in on alt.media

Over the last six months, VideoAmp has announced partnerships with major media companies such as NBC, Paramount, Univision, Disney, and the Weather Channel. These companies are offering VideoAmp measurement or currency for their upfronts.

With the upfront approaching, VideoAmp founder Ross McCray notes a renewed interest in alternative currencies. He says, “There’s a pretty big windfall of clients that are now moving to planning off of the VideoAmp currency.”

As a result, McCray believes that, for the first time in history, many advertisers will opt in to use no legacy currency and go all-in on new systems.

VideoAmp has been offering their solution for a couple of years with three years of data, providing a solid precedent for advertisers to make the change.

Amped-up

VideoAmp is a software and data platform that helps advertisers and media companies optimize their advertising campaigns and measure their performance across various devices and channels.

The company offers a range of tools and services to help advertisers plan, buy, and measure their campaigns, including cross-screen planning and optimization, audience targeting, programmatic buying, and advanced measurement and attribution.

VideoAmp’s platform is designed to help advertisers reach their target audiences across TV, digital, and over-the-top (OTT) devices, including connected TV (CTV) and mobile devices.

Working with the JIC

As such alternative currency suppliers burgeon, leading to a degree of market consternation about yet more “fragmentation”, the US industry recently took the rare, European-style step of forming a Joint Industry Committees (JIC) to harmonize developments.

McCray believes that the purpose of the JIC  is to bring alignment to what buyers and sellers are looking for in a solution.

“There’s so many different cooks in the kitchen regarding what buyers want, what sellers want, and even different kinds of buyers have different requirements and different kinds of sellers or different requirements,” he says.

JICs provide a high-level framework, making it easy for measurement providers like VideoAmp to build solutions.

However, McCray acknowledges that brands will always want to do things their own way. He explains that JIC standards provide clarity but do not dictate how a buyer and seller should utilize solutions.

Prove it

For advertisers, what is the real impact of an alternative, cross-screen measurement and currency system?

McCray says VideoAmp has produced a set of 12 case studies to prove it.

He says, “It’s been a lot of tell-not-show. So we spent a lot of effort to try to get 12 different advertisers who have been doing actual real guarantees to show the results and tie it to what matters for them, which is their sales lift.”

In every scenario, using VideoAmp currency over a legacy currency increased sales lift, leading to an uptick of 10 to 30% conversions when a buyer and seller used VideoAmp currency over legacy, the case studies show.

You’re watching “The TV Upfronts in Transition,” a Beet.TV Leadership Series presented by AudienceXpress. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.

By Robert Andrews on @robertandrews