UK advertiser trade group ISBA this morning announced it will begin launching trials of Origin, its in-development tool for cross platform measurement. EE, L’Oréal, PepsiCo, P&G and Unilever are signed up for initial tests which will begin next month, with more advertisers due to join for Beta testing further down the line.
Work on Origin began in 2019, in response to an initiative from the World Federation of Advertisers seeking to establish cross-media measurement principles. At its core, Origin is designed to give advertisers deduplicated reach and frequency of their campaigns across different platforms, with plans to add more capabilities further down the line.
But deduplicating reach and frequency is no easy feat. It involves matching up panel-based data from linear TV with vetted datasets from digital platforms, with no existing identifier to tie the two together.
Origin’s solution draws on a model proposed by the WFA called Virtual ID, which is being designed by Kantar and will launch in the coming months. And with this model established, Origin will be able to begin surfacing real data from advertisers participating in the trial.
“In-life [Origin] will deliver significant ROI for advertisers, allow agencies to assist their client partners in providing better multi-media advertising solutions and will allow media owners to make level playing feed single-source comparisons as to the contribution their medium makes in solving advertiser communication problems,” said Tom George, CEO of Origin. “Seeing real data surfaced from Origin in phase 4, will help achieve that vision.”
Worth the wait?
Throughout the process of developing Origin, those working on the project have emphasised the need for patience. There’s a reason cross-media measurement has been a headache for advertisers for so long – there’s no quick fix.
But, while Origin has rolled through its development phases, agencies have had to figure out their own ways to handle cross media measurement. Just a few weeks ago, GroupM’s addressable TV unit Finecast unveiled its own cross-media measurement solution, Total TV Measurement.
Nonetheless, overall sentiment seems to be that once Origin is released (with the minimum viable project scheduled for launch in December next year), it will be a very valuable tool for advertisers and agencies.
“The importance of the data that will be surfaced from the platform across the trial launch phase is underlined by all ISBA members making a financial contribution in 2023 and by the agreement of advertisers to collection of the Fractional Advertiser Contribution ahead of the MVP launch,” said Margaret Jobling, CMO of NatWest Group and president of ISBA.
