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The long-held advertising adage that "all media isn’t created equal" is facing renewed scrutiny in the era of programmatic advertising. While the industry has increasingly gravitated towards a theory that audiences are the primary target, and therefore ad formats and creative can be standardized and commoditized, the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) is set to release a paper that aims to dismantle this notion, particularly concerning Connected TV (CTV) inventory. A pre-release review of the document, teased during CIMM’s East event in New York City on Tuesday, suggests a fundamental challenge to the prevailing programmatic ethos.
CIMM’s forthcoming paper goes beyond merely demonstrating that media quality differences can be quantified. It argues that the industry’s relentless focus on short-term outcomes has exacerbated persistent challenges, such as the proliferation of made-for-advertising (MFA) sites that exploit the programmatic ecosystem. This fixation also leads brands to overspend on low-quality CTV ads, often indistinguishable from premium placements within automated bidding processes. Furthermore, it incentivizes ad tech vendors to prioritize audience data over the intrinsic value of the media itself.
Erez Levin, founder of ad tech consultancy Emet Advisory and a co-author of the paper, highlighted the nebulous nature of "quality" within the industry. "Quality has been a buzzword for a while in this industry, and no one’s really defined it, except, for the most part, in self-serving ways," Levin stated. CIMM’s objective, he explained, is to establish an "objective, industry-wide shared consensus and framework" to move media quality discussions out of their current "limbo." The paper’s intent is not to introduce novel measurement standards but to catalyze a comprehensive industry conversation, compelling agencies, tech platforms, and publishers to articulate a coherent approach to media quality assessment.
The Imperative for Consensus in a Fragmented Ecosystem
The impetus for CIMM’s paper stems from the significant growth and diversification of the media quality, curation, and programmatic verification landscape. A burgeoning ecosystem of startups, including Jounce Media, DeepSee, Sincera, Adalytics, and Gamera, are tackling these challenges from various angles. This innovation is mirrored by the resurgence of established players like DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science, breathing new life into the quality measurement category. Recent trends in attention measurement and deal curation have further introduced new avenues for transacting on quality signals, underscoring the urgent need for a unifying framework.
The genesis of the CIMM paper can be traced back to the organization’s collaboration with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) on the "Attention Measurement Playbook for Marketers," released late last year. During the development of attention standards, the working group repeatedly encountered a fundamental lack of industry consensus on how to measure the quality of ad impressions. This realization fueled CIMM’s commitment to address this critical gap.
The paper aims to shed light on the emerging tools available to advertisers to navigate this complex landscape. Levin has been a vocal advocate for enhanced quality and attention measurement since at least 2017, during his tenure as a product specialist for Google Marketing Platform, where he gained insights into both buy-side and sell-side perspectives. Co-author Gabriel Dorosz, global advertising initiative lead at the International News Media Association and former head of audience strategy for The New York Times, brings a critical publisher-side viewpoint to the initiative.
Dorosz articulated his motivation for contributing to the paper, stating, "In the premium news publisher space, there’s a belief that the market is not serving those kinds of publishers well. My passion is that quality publishers ought to be getting more of their fair share of ad spend, and this paper is a way to advance that."
Dispelling Myths and Redefining Value
Beyond advocating for publishers, Dorosz emphasized that the paper is designed to equip buyers with the knowledge to avoid wasteful spending on less effective advertising. The authors intend to debunk prevalent myths that have taken root as a consequence of buyers being "oversold on the value of certainty," according to Dorosz.
A prime example is the industry’s heavy reliance on deterministic attribution as a proxy for audience value. The presence of a deterministic identifier in a bid request often renders that inventory inherently more valuable than one lacking such an identifier, overshadowing factors like time of day, contextual data, and device type. CIMM’s paper, however, contends that probabilistic modeling offers a more accurate assessment of the true value across a broader spectrum of ad impressions.
The paper provides guidance on incorporating probabilistic metrics such as attention scoring and contextual relevance to gauge an impression’s potential to advance stated campaign goals. It meticulously details how these metrics can fluctuate significantly based on temporal and contextual factors.
Similarly, the industry has become accustomed to high price points for premium CTV inventory. Levin pointed out the anomaly of major streaming platforms maintaining these high CPMs even during off-peak hours, when audience receptivity is typically lower. This suggests that advertisers should critically examine and question why their streaming campaigns might allocate a substantial portion of their budget overnight, and be wary if such spending patterns are not clearly justified.
A New Model for Media Quality: The Quality Trifecta
To foster a renewed emphasis on media quality, CIMM introduces a new model designed to reconnect with the fundamental principles of marketing. This framework is anchored by "The Quality Trifecta," a concept championed by Levin, which posits that media quality, creative quality, and audience quality should be independently measured.
Media quality itself is further dissected into two key components: "attention," defined as the prominence of an ad placement, and "situational context," referring to the likelihood that the surrounding media environment fosters a receptive mood in the viewer.
The paper advocates for a departure from binary quality assessment methods, such as the mere presence of an ID in a bid request or meeting minimum viewability thresholds. Instead, it champions "non-binary, relative, and probabilistic" measurements like attention scoring, which evaluate media quality on a spectrum of effectiveness. Levin asserts that these nuanced approaches facilitate more accurate comparisons across different media types and better capture variations influenced by audience demographics and time of day.
Furthermore, the paper underscores the importance of balancing short-term performance objectives with long-term brand-building opportunities. While acknowledging that smaller brands reliant on immediate returns should prioritize immediate gains, it suggests that a holistic strategy necessitates consideration of both.
CTV as the Proving Ground and the Buy-Side Imperative
While CIMM’s paper offers guidance applicable to the entire open web, the authors identify streaming media and CTV inventory as the critical proving ground. This is due to CTV’s high-stakes environment, characterized by elevated CPMs, intense demand competition, and expansive creative canvases.
Dorosz further elaborated that CTV’s relative immunity to the decades-long dependency on third-party cookies frees it from certain established industry norms. Traditional pixel-based measurement approaches, effective on other platforms, often fall short in the CTV environment. For instance, the paper suggests a complete re-evaluation of viewability measurement for CTV. Given that CTV ads typically autoplay with sound and occupy the full screen, the traditional definition of viewability becomes largely irrelevant.
Although industry-wide adoption remains the ultimate goal, the authors concur that the buy side must spearhead this transformative shift. Dorosz concluded, "These theories only matter if the buy side demonstrates success and drives repeatability." The onus is on advertisers and their agencies to embrace these new frameworks, proving their efficacy and paving the way for a more quality-conscious digital advertising ecosystem. The implications of this shift are profound, potentially leading to more efficient media spend, improved campaign outcomes, and a more sustainable and equitable digital advertising landscape for all stakeholders.
