Origin Beta Trial Starts - plus Why it's Not a Currency

In the UK, the ISBA's Origin ad measurement system has moved into Beta Trials. 35 major advertiser members will test real campaign data across YouTube, Meta and linear TV. Meanwhile one of the system's founding stakeholders has sought to quash suggestions it might be used as a currency to replace Barb.

Origin's Alpha Trials ran through the second half of 2023 and involved five major advertisers using synthetic campaign data for initial testing of the platform. Now more than 50 users from the first ten companies are ready to use the platform to measure deduplicated cross-media reach and frequency levels across real campaigns, and will feed back on their experience - the companies are Confused.com, HSBC, L'Oréal, NatWest, PepsiCo, P&G, Red Bull, Tesco, Unilever and Virgin Media O2. The remaining 25 Beta Trial companies will be integrated into the platform over the next few months.

The organisation says the Beta will be follow by a short Pilot Trials stage with more advertisers and media owners integrated onto the platform, which will then be available to the whole market as Origin v1 in early 2025. Origin will use its own 2,500 household panel, built by Kantar and using the research group's Focal Meter to capture digital device viewing information, to source linear TV campaign audience data including pioneering second-by-second viewing data allowing direct comparison with digital audience data. An audit of Origin's input data and methodology is also underway, and will include validation of the end result.

ISBA Director General Phil Smith says Origin 'has been driven by brand-owners' desire to deliver more effective advertising in an ever-changing and increasingly complex media environment', and adds: 'It is gratifying to have reached this phase after much hard work. Our stakeholders should be commended for the commitment they have shown and the funding they have contributed over the past three years'. Origin CEO Tom George (pictured) says the Beta Trials 'mark a pivotal moment for the Origin programme - when Origin theory turns into practice and we start to surface real, accountable and actionable data from the platform'. He comments: 'The calibre and scale of the advertisers involved in this phase speaks for itself and underlines the demand from the market for the programme'.

Meanwhile an open and occasionally heated debate about the place of Origin alongside UK ad currency Barb has been taking place in the media and at events in the past weeks. Writing in online publication The Media Leader today, Direct Line Group's Head of Performance Marketing and CRM Sam Taylor sought to calm this debate and prevent what he describes as problems resulting from 'friendly fire'. Taylor - a founding stakeholder of Origin - says 'Any suggestion that an advertiser might use Origin as a TV currency is an insult'. He explains that advertisers need data from many angles about the impact of ads on an increasingly large and complex range of channels and media, and may sometimes want data on pears as well as data on apples, without being confused enough to think that they can equate one with the other. He stresses that 'advertisers are fully behind Origin' and have been since its inception, 'because it will enable them to evaluate their choices in media against [the] criteria that [are] important for them to grow their businesses' - however 'Origin is not a currency'.

Taylor says the 'reticence' of UK commercial broadcasters who think 'the Media Rating Council's definition of two-second duration (or lower) might become the 'standard' for counting video impressions' is understandable, but points out that Origin will not give the same value to a two-second view and a 30-second completed view of a television ad 'and nor will the media agency and advertisers that use it... Advertisers know the difference - and it is because they know the difference that there has been so much demand and support for Origin in the first place'. He concludes: 'Origin is designed to be a reporting, planning, and optimisation tool, not a trading currency. Any other use would be irresponsible and short-sighted. In my opinion, Origin does not seek to replace the excellent job that Barb does as a trading currency for £5bn+ of annual TV spend'.

Web sites: www.originmediameasurement.com , www.isba.org.uk and (with thanks) www.the-media-leader.com . The full article by Sam Taylor is here .