In an effort to promote innovation and explore new, high quality ways to measure audiences across traditional and new media, a group of leading US television content providers, media agencies and advertisers are joining together in an historic initiative to create the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM).
Signaling the critical importance within the industry for such an organization, CIMM is was announced yesterday by executives from 14 founding member companies:
Jeff Bewkes, Chairman and CEO, Time Warner
George Bodenheimer, President of ESPN and ABC Sports, and Co-Chair, Disney Media Networks
Nick Brien, President & CEO, Interpublic Group’s Mediabrands
Chase Carey, Deputy Chairman, President and COO, News Corporation
Philippe Dauman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Viacom
Laura Desmond, CEO, Starcom MediaVest Group Worldwide
Dina Howell, Vice President, Global Media & Brand Operations, The Procter & Gamble Company
Laura Klauberg, Senior Vice President, Global Media, Unilever
Esther Lee, Senior Vice President, Brand Marketing and Advertising, AT&T
Sir Martin Sorrell, Group Chief Executive, WPP, holding company for GroupM
Anne Sweeney, President, Disney-ABC Television Group and co-chair, Disney Media Networks
Nancy Tellem, President, CBS Paramount Network Television Entertainment Group
Page Thompson, CEO, North America, Omnicom Media Group
David M. Zaslav, President and CEO, Discovery Communications
Jeff Zucker, President and CEO, NBC Universal
CIMM will work to explore and identify new methodologies and approaches to audience measurement. The group will initiate, fund and evaluate a series of pilot studies with independent measurement companies focusing on two key areas: the current and future potential of television measurement through set-top-box data, and new methods for cross-platform media measurement. CIMM will publish all research findings to its members and make them publicly available as well.
CIMM will be funded by the group’s founding participants, who will hire an independent managing director to oversee day-to-day operations. Any US television content providers, buying agencies or advertisers that are interested in joining CIMM should contact NBC Universal Research President Alan Wurtzel, [email protected].
Said Zucker: “Twenty-first century media needs 21st century measurement techniques. Existing systems are incapable of accurately measuring the media habits of our audience across today’s multiplicity of platforms. CIMM is an important step in helping to address this problem. As an industry, we can’t afford not to do this, because if we can’t measure our audience accurately, we can’t sell it.”
RBR/TVBR asked P&G’s Martha Depenbrock: 1) Why was Nielsen not part of this; and 2) Why wasn’t CANOE/David Verklin a part of this?
“The CIMM was created to be a microcosm of three key players of the industry – television-based media content companies, media agencies and advertisers. Together, we want to foster research innovation and explore the development of new methods that ultimately will benefit our consumers. The media landscape is changing and we need the ability to measure across all media platforms with a granularity and precision that doesn’t currently exist. As a media measurement provider, we hope Nielsen and others will submit a response to the RFP that is being issued.”
Added Tellem: “As more professional content finds its way to multiple platforms it’s imperative that content owners receive value for viewing on these screens. CIMM underscores the mutual need for those on the buying and selling side to come together to establish metrics across all platforms in an accurate and credible way. This announcement shouldn’t be seen as an alternative to Nielsen. It’s quite the contrary; we expect Nielsen, along with other research entities, to be a part of the solution.”
