Mediascope’s new projects and products in 2020

31.10.2019

On 29 October the Adrenaline Stadium held the annual Mediascope client conference. This year the conference marked the company’s 25th anniversary and became one of the key events in the Russian media and advertising market. The guests of the event were representatives of advertisers, TV channels, Internet platforms, advertising agencies, radio holdings and publishing houses, as well as of industry associations.

During the business part of the event the company’s top-managers spoke on the current state of media measurements in Russia and announced their plans for new developments and promising products in 2020. 

The future of media measurements 

Ksenia Achkasova, Mediascope Chief Operating Officer, opened the business part of the event with the presentation on the company’s results and plans on developing measurements. According to Ksenia, usage of modern technology for collection, processing and integration of data (including the third parties’ data) is an important growth area for Mediascope. The company is focused on developing its technological  infrastructure: it is launching a new platform for processing data, it is testing new methods of measurement and integration of partner data obtained from external sources. However, panel measurements remain the foundation of Mediascope research, because only they give a basic understanding on a person and his/her media consumption. A person is at the center of all company’s research. Only the combination of panel measurements and new technological tools will create a comprehensive system of cross-media measurements that can give all the information about a person’s contact with media and advertising, and their consumption.

Ksenia Achkasova also told the conference attendees about development of Mediascope’s projects in 2019, and about the expansion of measurements of all electronic media (TV, Internet, radio) to the population of whole Russia.


Mediascope Data Platform: advanced analytics

Vasily Kuzmin, Mediascope Chief Data Officer, presented to the conference attendees a new technology platform for processing data Mediascope Data Platform. It allows you to collect and process in a unified form large amounts of data from different sources about a person’s contact with media and advertising, his consumer behavior: company’s own data and third-party data, including partners’ data.

Mediascope Data Platform becomes a technological basis for cross-media measurements because it can unify incoming raw data from different sources and put it into a single structure (event log). In addition to Mediascope's own data, the platform can process the partners’ data: Internet sites, communications service providers, third-party data on purchases and consumer behavior.

Using the platform, clients can access Mediascope’s data on a deeper level and launch new analytic products faster.


Enrichment data of Mediascope’s TV panel with the data from communications service providers

Head of Mediascope's product development sector, Ivan Ugryumov, presented the first results of combining the data of TV Index panel measurements with the data collected via the Return Path Data of provider’s TV set-top boxes.

The telecommunication holding “ER-Telecom”, the largest private paid TV provider in Russia (brand name - Dom.ru) was the first Mediascope partner in this project. The first data presented at the conference was calculated based on more than 120.000 TV set-top boxes.

Panel measurements based on people meters, which are a recognized currency on the TV advertising market, is still the Mediascope’s main technology. RPD data contains a large array of information about viewing TV channels, but does not give any understanding of viewers ’socio-demographic profile, their joint viewing and other important parameters. As a result, combining the two data sets leads to expansion of media planning possibilities and advertising campaigns analysis, in particular, on a local and cable TV.


Measurement of advertising campaigns on the Internet

In 2019, Mediascope launched measurement of display and video advertising campaigns on Youtube and Yandex with the use of user-centric panel. The data is to be integrated in the overall Mediascope’s report in the metrics the market is used to, those that are comparable to other media: reach, frequency, socio-demographic profile of the audience.

Data on desktop video ad campaigns on Youtube by cities of more than 100.000 are already available for Mediascope’s clients for the period starting since September 2019. In the future data on mobile campaigns will be added. Deliveries of data on ad campaigns on Yandex will start in 2020.

Irina Suanova, head of the Mediascope client service department, noted in her speech that the counter, which is installed on many large Russian Internet sites, remains the most important means of Internet measurement the company has. It helps measure about 10.000 tagged advertising campaigns every year. But technological limitations in some environments and global tendency to cut off Internet sites from external integrations make usage of the counter impossible in a number of cases.

Therefore, Mediascope is looking for solutions for all players of the advertising market, including using user-centric panels, as the market needs an independent evaluation, a universal coordinate system and a capability of analyzing cross-platform campaigns.


Viewability by Mediascope

The head of the Mediascope client support sector, Mikhail Poponov, announced at the conference the launch of the company’s own solution for evaluation of advertising viewability. This is the first solution in Russia that will combine data on advertising visibility with audience indicators: reach, frequency and socio-demographic profile.

Product features:

• flexible settings (clients can configure the parameters of advertising visibility themselves);
• external independent measurement (Mediascope doesn’t have ad sales products);
• servers are located in Russia (query path is shorter, data is not lost, inconsistencies are minimized);
• open code and transparency (viewability counter is built on open source technology, platforms won’t have problems integrating it).

The tool will be available on the market in 2020. Now, at the final stage, video advertisement viewability is tested, and the solution is integrated by the platforms.

Brand Pulse is a new project for research consumer preferences of Russians

Marina Pikuleva, Mediascope's director for special research, presented to the client conference attendees a new project on studying consumer preferences of Russians called Brand Pulse. It will be launched in 2020.

The study will be conducted using online survey among people who live in cities with the population of more than 100.000 people. Online access panel scope will amount to 30-35.000 people.

Research features:

• Switching to online surveys speeds up the delivery of data on key product categories - clients will receive results on them weekly and quarterly
• The survey will take two stages: at first, a respondent is to fill in a profile questionnaire once, then short questionnaires about consumption of specific goods and services are to be sent to him/her. It will take 3-5 minutes to fill them in, it will reduce a respondent’s workload
• In addition to analyzing target groups, product categories consumption, using research data in building marketing strategies, Brand Pulse allows you to quickly monitor key brand indicators, including advertising effectiveness
• Clients will be able to conduct contract research on the basis of Brand Pulse - add additional questions to the profile questionnaire for respondents
• Data of the research is to be integrated into Mediascope Data Platform, where you can analyze them with the media measurements results.