The other guys blinked.
The mainstream advertising industry just did something that feels to me like a watershed moment in the evolution of marketing communication. They invented something called CIMM – the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement. There’s an article on it in Advertising Age.
The Coalition is based on two, incontrovertible facts: first, the current methods of media measurement aren’t innovative, and, second, they aren’t working. Well, it’s not surprising, because they were initially structured around a whole different set of circumstances – like a TV and radio audience you could get your arms around.
Says Jane Clarke, Managing Director of the Coalition: “The project may seem kind of wonky, but it is really about fixing the plumbing of the media and advertising industry. Currently, the plumbing is very inefficient and needs replacement. Every media company has their own system for tracking content. It makes cross-media measurement so much harder. What you have to do is cobble together and combine all of these different systems with different proprietary codes.” Sounds crazy? It is.
The backers of CIMM include client-side people like Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, Pepsico and Unilever, as well as agency heavyweights like WPP, Interpublic and Publicis. They have sensibly decided that what is needed is a Universal Standard – one custom-plumbed to accommodate the new media universe. And, equally sensibly, someone has decided to bring Ernst & Young into the picture. They’re the guys who will do the due diligence that’s due doing. “Better tracking can benefit any number of parties,” they say.
Right on, Ernst & Young! It can benefit me. It can add some relevance – and gravitas – to the narrowcast marketing and communication work that many of us in the so-called non-traditional marketing biz have been doing for years in websites, promotions, blogs, events, business videos, and scrawls on bathroom walls.
Here’s to better plumbing!