IAB sets audit challenge for NetRatings and ComScore
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The US Interactive Advertising Bureau has challenged NetRatings and ComScore to submit to third party audits of their measurement processes, in light of discrepancies in their results.
The IAB said that the two major online audience measurement firms “have resisted numerous requests for audits by the IAB and the Media Rating Council, some dating back to 1999.”
The bureau, whose members account for 86% of US interactive advertising spending, is asking both firms to obtain audits of their technologies and processes from the Media Rating Council (MRC).
Randall Rothenberg, who took on the role of IAB president in January, said there are discrepancies between the ratings produced by NetRatings, ComScore, and data from media companies' own server logs.
“To persist in using panels that potentially undercount or ignore the diverse populations that are the future of consumer marketing is to deny marketers the insights they need to build their businesses,” writes Rothenberg, in his letter addressed to NetRatings president William Pulver and ComScore president Magid Abraham.
Louise Ainsworth, NetRatings' managing director for EMEA, said the firm is already agreeing terms for an audit with the MRC, having completed a pre-audit last year. One reason this is taking time is the decision to include new technology that uses both panel and server techniques, she said.
IAB senior vice president and general manager Sheryl Draizen said: “We want very specific timing on when they're going to get their audit done and at this point we've not had anything to that effect.”
Ainsworth said: “We are very proud of our methodology… We are open to audits, although you have to realise that these are non-trivial exercises that incur significant costs and take time.”
She added that an IAB-commissioned review of NetRatings' methodology was successfully completed two years ago. “What is also needed is a greater understanding in the market of the different natures of panel and server measurement and how these are best combined to provide the data needed for effective online media planning,” she said.
In his letter, Rothenberg criticises ‘outdated' panel-based measurement systems. He writes: “Imagine my surprise when I came to the IAB and discovered that the main audience measurement companies are still relying on panels – a media-measurement technique invented for the radio industry exactly seven decades ago – to quantify the internet.”
ComScore representatives could not be reached for comment at the time Research went to press.
The firm recently published research suggesting that panel-based measurement was more accurate than measures based on log files such as cookies, as the tendency of some users to regularly delete cookies can cause the same user to be counted several times, leading to inflated figures.
Author: Robert Bain
Related links:
Hand in the ‘cookie' jar could lead to bloated figures, says ComScore
NetRatings seeks accreditation from Media Rating Council
