MindShare Aids the Revenge of the Gross Ratings Point

(MoneyWatch)  Every time I read a story like the one I saw in Mediaweek yesterday titled: "MindShare, YuMe Partner on iGRP Metric" the steam starts coming out of my ears. OK, I know it's not readily apparent as to why, but those of us who ponder the differences between old media and new -- and how they should be respected -- probably know exactly what I'm talking about. Why, why, do media agencies still have to eschew new media metrics in favor of old ones? To calm the nerves of advertisers who, about 15 years into the Internet revolution, can't justify the money they spend unless it's tied to a decades-old, outdated way of measuring TV.

The so-called "iGRP" (if you haven't figured it out already, it stands for "Internet Gross Ratings Point) has been developed, per Mediaweek by media agency MindShare and online video company YuMe

"to serve as a comparable metric to the TV world's longstanding GRP. The hope behind the new metric, said officials, was to help make it easier for brands to justify shifting dollars from TV to the Web and also to help buyers evaluate plans that cross both media--through the calculation of a campaigns' total TV/Web video reach and frequency."

While apples-to-apples comparisons are better than apples-to-oranges comparisons, it should be obvious that online video and offline video are essentially different experiences. Online video is often sought out by the user; watching offline video is often the result of a serendipitous channel surf. Online ad video should, according to many experts, be 15-seconds long and include an element of interactivity; to both acknowledge the online audience's minute attention span and leverage the capabilities of the medium; offline video usually adheres to the static 30-second format. In other words, the online video ad market should be essentially different. So should its metrics.

(BTW, meant to mention that my ire isn't directed at MindShare, YuMe or the reporter who wrote the story, whom I know fairly well; it's all directed at a system that refuses to change.)