The advertising industry, long accustomed to the adage that "all media isn’t created equal," is facing a significant challenge to its prevailing programmatic strategies. A forthcoming paper from the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) directly confronts the industry’s tendency to overlook the intrinsic value of media quality and content in favor of audience targeting. This research, teased at CIMM’s recent East event in New York City and reviewed in advance by AdExchanger, asserts that the current programmatic ecosystem, particularly within Connected TV (CTV) inventory, is perpetuating inefficiencies and hindering genuine value for advertisers.
The paper argues that the prevailing theory—that ad formats and creative can be standardized and commoditized because the audience is the primary focus—is fundamentally flawed. This approach, CIMM contends, not only allows for the proliferation of "made-for-advertising" sites that exploit the programmatic ecosystem but also leads brands to overspend on low-quality CTV placements that are indistinguishable from premium inventory. Furthermore, it empowers ad tech vendors who prioritize audience metrics over the underlying media environment.
Erez Levin, founder of ad tech consultancy Emet Advisory and a co-author of the paper, highlighted the ambiguity surrounding the term "quality" in 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 beyond the current "limbo" of media quality discussions. The paper’s aim is not to introduce new measurement standards but to catalyze a comprehensive industry dialogue, compelling agencies, tech platforms, and publishers to articulate a coherent approach to media quality measurement.
The Evolving Landscape of Media Quality Measurement
The impetus for CIMM’s paper stems from the dramatic expansion of services dedicated to media quality, curation, and programmatic verification. A surge of startups, including Jounce Media, DeepSee, Sincera, Adalytics, and Gamera, are approaching these complex challenges from diverse angles. The re-emergence of established players like DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science has also injected new energy into this critical sector. Concurrently, emerging trends in attention measurement and deal curation are introducing novel methods for transacting based on quality signals.
This initiative builds upon CIMM’s prior collaboration with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) on the Attention Measurement Playbook for Marketers, released late last year. During the development of those attention standards, the working group repeatedly encountered a lack of consensus on how to accurately measure the quality of ad impressions. While progress is being made, the CIMM paper seeks to illuminate the array of new tools now available to advertisers.
Levin has been a vocal advocate for improved quality and attention measurement since at least 2017, when he served as a product specialist for Google Marketing Platform, engaging with both buy and sell sides. The paper’s other co-author, Gabriel Dorosz, leads the global advertising initiative at the International News Media Association and is a former head of audience strategy at The New York Times. Dorosz’s involvement was driven by his publisher-side perspective. "In the premium news publisher space, there’s a belief that the market is not serving those kinds of publishers well," Dorosz commented. "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’ need to demonstrate media quality, Dorosz emphasized that the paper also aims to help buyers cease wasteful spending on less effective advertisements. To achieve this, the authors endeavor to debunk certain ingrained myths, particularly those stemming from an overemphasis on "the value of certainty," as Dorosz put it.
A prime example is the industry’s heavy reliance on deterministic attribution as a proxy for audience value. In this paradigm, a bid request containing a deterministic identifier is inherently perceived as more valuable than one lacking such information. Factors like time of day, contextual data, and device type are often relegated to secondary importance compared to the presence of an ID. However, CIMM’s paper posits that probabilistic modeling, rather than solely deterministic data, offers marketers 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 a brand’s campaign objectives. It elaborates on how these metrics can fluctuate significantly based on factors like time of day and surrounding content. Similarly, while the industry has become accustomed to high price points for premium CTV inventory, Levin pointed out the anomaly of major streaming platforms maintaining these elevated costs even during off-peak hours, when audiences are typically less engaged. This suggests that advertisers should critically examine why their streaming campaigns might allocate substantial budget overnight and be wary if such allocations occur without strategic justification.
A New Paradigm: The Quality Trifecta
To reorient the industry’s focus toward media quality, the paper introduces a novel model designed to reconnect with fundamental marketing principles. This framework is largely built upon "The Quality Trifecta," a concept championed by Levin, which advocates for the independent measurement of media quality, creative quality, and audience quality.
Within this trifecta, media quality is further segmented into two crucial components: "attention," referring to the prominence of the ad placement, and "situational context," which assesses the likelihood that the surrounding media environment fosters a receptive mood in the viewer. The paper urges marketers to move beyond simplistic, binary quality assessment methods, such as solely checking for an ID in a bid request or meeting minimum viewability standards. Instead, it recommends adopting "non-binary, relative, and probabilistic" measurements, like attention scoring, that evaluate media quality on a continuous spectrum of effectiveness. Levin explained that these nuanced approaches facilitate more meaningful comparisons across different media types and are better equipped to capture variations influenced by audience demographics and temporal factors.
The paper also underscores the importance of balancing short-term performance objectives with long-term brand-building opportunities. While acknowledging that brands heavily reliant on immediate returns should continue to prioritize them, the overarching message is that a holistic view is essential for sustainable growth.
CTV as the Proving Ground and the Buy-Side Imperative
While CIMM’s paper offers guidance for the entire open web, the authors identify streaming media and CTV supply as the critical proving ground. This is due to CTV’s high-stakes environment, characterized by elevated CPMs, intense demand, and expansive creative canvases. Dorosz further noted that CTV’s relative freedom from decades of third-party cookie dependency has allowed for a less entrenched status quo. Moreover, many traditional pixel-based measurement techniques, effective on other platforms, prove inadequate for CTV.
For instance, the paper advocates for a complete reevaluation of viewability measurement in the CTV context. Given that CTV ads typically autoplay with sound and occupy the full screen, the traditional definition of viewability becomes less relevant.
Despite the aspiration for industry-wide adoption, CIMM acknowledges that the buy side must spearhead this transformation. "These theories only matter if the buy side demonstrates success and drives repeatability," Dorosz concluded. The success of these new frameworks hinges on advertisers actively integrating these principles into their strategies and proving their efficacy through measurable outcomes. This buy-side leadership is crucial for shifting the industry’s focus from a purely audience-centric approach to a more holistic and value-driven model of media investment. The paper’s release marks a significant step towards fostering a more sophisticated and effective advertising ecosystem, particularly in the rapidly evolving landscape of digital video.
