Global brands and tech groups back new ads measurement system

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Some of the world’s biggest consumer brands and technology companies such as Google and Meta have backed the trial launch of a new system in the UK to measure advertising across television and digital services.

Designed to better understand how advertising works across increasingly fragmented media channels, the UK platform has raised £20mn to launch with five major advertisers using the system for the first time, including Procter & Gamble, L’Oréal, EE, PepsiCo and Unilever.

The Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA), which represents the majority of the UK’s biggest spending brands, has been working on the platform for the past two years. The system has been devised to be able to be adopted in other parts of the world after the UK rollout.

Large brand advertisers have long been frustrated by not knowing exactly who watches their advertising, in particular when assessing how their money is best spent across different media platforms where there can be duplication in reaching the same customers, rather than new audiences.

Advertisers have complained of a lack of common measurement standards across various media types spanning digital platforms and broadcast TV.

The new platform launched by the ISBA — called Origin — has raised £20mn in funding for the trial launch. The money will come from the original 30 brand owners that backed its conception, tech groups such as Google, Meta, Amazon and TikTok, six media agency groups and contributions from ISBA members. In total, the platform has now raised more than £32mn

The ISBA is also in talks to begin collecting a fee from the advertisers using the platform. The trial launch will feature up to 30 advertisers — all of which have invested in the platform — before opening up to others in 2024.

Tom George, chief executive of Origin, described the company as a “UK prototype for a global framework”, and added that the platform would split from the ISBA to form an independent company in the next year.

The ISBA said that the new system would be a “significant milestone in helping the UK advertising industry measure, report and plan cross-media campaigns”.

It added that Origin would provide clarity “in an environment where technological advances have changed media-consumption habits dramatically — resulting in increasingly fragmented audiences for advertising and an explosion in the number of advertising formats available online”.

The system gathers information on traditional TV viewing using its own panel of viewers, alongside digital video and digital display data provided by tech groups such as Google and Meta. Virtual IDs are assigned to a viewer to protect privacy and allow easier comparisons of audience measurements across multiple platforms.

TV broadcasters in the UK measure viewers through Barb, a company that uses panel and device-based data. 

The ISBA says that the platform will be transparent on who is watching what, allowing advertisers to decide where to best spend their money.