Are digital metrics bullshit?: Mumbrella360 video
In this light-hearted lunchtime debate from the Mumbrella360 conference, Mark Ritson and Louise Barrett pit themselves against Ashley Ringrose and Dan Monheit to debate the legitimacy of digital metrics. Tune in to find out who was crowned the ultimate winner.
The debate about digital metrics at Mumbrella360 was so full, people had to be turned away at the door. It opened with Ritson declaring “I measured my penis this morning” and only got better from there.
In the video below, which documents the whole debate, Ritson makes an entertaining case for the motion that digital metrics are over-complex, unreliable and just plain bullshit.
Joining Ritson in the case against digital metrics is Louise Barrett, GM of network sales at News Corp, who argues that digital is a space without true independent measurement, and therefore isn’t to be trusted.
Arguing against the motion that digital metrics are bullshit is Soap Creative co-founder Ashley Ringrose and Hardhat strategy director Dan Monheit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfJzKPsaYfI
Monheit argues that traditional media’s metrics are full of far more BS than digital, and Ringrose makes the point that instead of playing dumb to the world of digital metrics, we instead need to arm ourselves with knowledge.
The debate is moderated by Nikki Clarkson, head of marketing and communication at Southern Cross Austereo.
Speakers’ transcript
Affirmative: marketing professor Mark Ritson
I measured my penis this morning. I do that a lot. I’m staying at the Sheraton on the Park over there. I measure my penis and I have a nice little leather tape measure I carry around with me. I got the tape measure out – it’s a good tape measure and it gives me a good consistent metric. I take two measures. I measure the length from the tip to the base, and I take the girth as well, because we all know that’s important too. So I take those two measures and I put them in a little notepad that I take around with me. And I don’t measure it every day, but I measure it most days. And I sat there and I looked at the measures and I though “Hmm”.
So I rang my mate Charlie Murdoch. Charlie’s also a cock measurer too. I rang Charlie and I said “Hey mate, you been measuring your cock this morning?” and he said: “You read my mind mate.” I said “well where are you?” he said “I’m just coming into work” I said: “Well swing by the Sheraton because I want you to check this for me.” So he came around, we had a cappuccino, got the tape measures out, and just double checked each other’s figures.
I think in that little story you learn a lot about me, about Charlie, about our cocks, but also, about what good metrics should do. Good metrics should be reliable, they should give you the same level. If I start getting a different length for my penis because the metric is wrong, it’s going to send me all kinds of the wrong kind of signals, right?
I think you don’t need too many measures. I think I could measure a thousand other things related to my genitalia, skin circumference and all these other things, temperature, and I could measure it all day long, I could have a gauge all day long there in my pants giving me constant readouts on my iPhone, but would it really help me measure it any better than I’m already doing with my tape measure in the morning?
Finally, it has to be comparable. I have to be able to ring up Charlie, we have to compare dick sizes, and then we have to measure each other’s dicks. It has to be something where we’re open to measuring and checking. I think that’s a good metric for metrics if you will.
If you take those three criteria and you look at digital metrics, I think you can see where currently they are filled with bullshit. They’re not internally consistent, and we should pick on Facebook and Google here specifically, partly because they’re the only two companies that matter. They’re doing two thirds of all the media spend and 100% of the growth. In Facebook’s case in the last 12 months, let me very quickly give you a list of all of their errors just so we’re clear what we’re talking about:
In September, it was announced that the average time spent watching video had been overstated between 60 – 80%. In early November, organic reach for posts was overstated 30 – 50%. Page posts organic reach appearing on screen was oversold by 20%.
In late November, overstated time spent reading Instant Articles by 8-9%. In December, [Facebook] overstated its referrals metric by more than 30%. December overstated mobile graph API numbers – whatever they are – by up to 71%.
Reaction data incorrectly measured 25% overstated. Didn’t measure iPhone traffic for Instant Articles correctly. Mischarged advertisers this month for clicks on video carousel ads. Understated videos watched at 100% length, the figure was actually 30% more than Facebook was saying.
Now it’s interesting there, there’s ten errors, of which seven or eight are overstated and one understates, which is an interesting balance there to start with. Why are there more overstatements than understatements, when it should just be purely random? I think there’s too many errors, I don’t think it’s consistent.
If you don’t believe me, we can ask the World Federation of Advertisers. That’s the big boys and girls club of the biggest advertisers in the world, the 50 CMOs with the most media spend in the world, combined they spend more than AUD $100 billion per year on advertising. That’s five times more than we spend in the whole of this country. They are the 50 biggest CMOs of the 50 biggest companies.
Of that group, 62% last month agreed that digital media metrics were not satisfactory. Now, that’s not saying it’s “bullshit”, but it’s as close as Americans get to saying bullshit in public. Almost two thirds of them are not happy, even though they’re spending billions of dollars, with the way digital is currently being measured. So if you don’t trust me, trust them.
I think the next explanation of why it’s full of bullshit explains a lot of these mistakes. Carolyn Everson is the very impressive vice president of marketing, when she uncovered one of these mistakes she said “look, no-one likes mistakes, we’ll now go back and we’ll look at all 220 of the metrics we use to measure Facebook advertising to see if there are any more errors, which there were. 220 is too many, and I think the digital industry – and you see examples of it at Mumbrella – mistake measuring lots with measuring well.
I’ve been lucky enough to work with some very famous, very bright economists in America, one step away from a Nobel Prize, and many of them use the same word when we talk about very advanced quantitative research. They talk about elegant data. “It’s a very elegant piece of data”. Elegant and simple. Less is more when it comes to measurement. 220 measurements in these screens and dashboards and overuse of data don’t help us understand, they actually stop us from understanding, as anyone who works in programmatic will tell you.
So – too many metrics, and yet too many metrics that we cannot actually compare. Where’s the chart where we see how YouTube is performing in simple metrics vs Facebook video? I still look for these and I miss them, right? We’re still not able to do simple, straightforward comparisons.
Where’s the ability to compare how a 30 second TV spot on Channel 7 compares with the digital video on Channel 7? These digital views don’t make any sense to me. I have a PHD in marketing and it doesn’t make any sense to me or to any other clients, and it’s okay to admit it. It’s not you that’s stupid, these digital metrics are bullshit.
And again if you don’t trust me, trust Mark Pritchard, the chief marketing officer of Proctor & Gamble. He said last January: “We spend enormous amounts of time trying to understand, analyse and explain the differences between Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Pandora, YouTube and the dozens of different viewability standards claimed to be right metric for each platform.”
The analogy he uses is an American football game, where every different team in the NFL has different rules, has different measurements, has different pitch arrangements, and then trying to get a game to work. It’s deliberately obfuscating so you can’t actually work out what the hell is going on, which is bullshit.
And finally we have the issue of walled gardens. We have the issue of why it’s not possible for someone else to independently measure this stuff. It’s one thing to have third party verification. It’s quite another to have someone else doing the measuring, someone else doing the homework. We shouldn’t be relying on these two giant companies because we “trust them”, particularly when they keep making mistakes. Neilson isn’t perfect, OzTAM isn’t ideal, but it’s good enough and it’s fit for purpose, and there’s no incentive for Nielsen to overstate Seven vs Nine.
There is enormous incentive for Facebook and Google to change, alter, obfuscate their data for their own interests. If I was running those companies I would do the same thing. It’s bullshit, and I find it deeply troubling and deeply fucking ironic that Google, a company whose mission broadly stated is to share information around the world with everyone, won’t fucking let anyone get in there and properly measure their data. Strange.
So, what can we conclude from my session? We conclude I think that digital metrics are bullshit. They have too many errors. They have too many measures which confuse and make everything difficult. They have too little comparative metrics that enable us as marketers to make better choices. And they are too bereft of external verifications. And last and most importantly: I’ve got a twelve inch penis.
Against: Dan Monheit, director of strategy and owner at Hardhat Digital
PHD – pretty huge dick right? In this room full of overachievers, because why else would you be at Mumbrella360, you guys all know that making decisions without data, or worse still, based on data that is full of bullshit, is short changing ourselves, the brands we represent, and the companies that pay us to make great decisions on their behalf. Which is why today’s debate is so important. Because if as an industry we are interested in improving our performance based on metrics, and if those metrics are full of bullshit, we might as well pack this whole thing up now and go home.
So come with me as we investigate, interrogate and explore, and as we do what we do in the digital world: we get to the facts and we see what’s there.
Now I should say from the outset – we know there will be issues. How could there not be issues pulling together, analysing insights from trillions of data points collected every second of every second of every day? I mean just last week our own beloved outdoor media association pulling together data from just 31 sources managed to overstate monthly growth by 80%. So despite all the technology and the apps and the bots, this is clearly still an industry filled with humans. And where there a humans, there will be a degree of human error. Unlike the humans working in TV, radio, print, and outdoor, the humans working in digital have had all about a decade to get our house in order. Which is about as long as it’s taken for digital to move from obscure side act to the only thing people without grey pubes actually care about. Less than a decade.
You guys know when the first TV ad ran, right? It was July 1 1941. I’m sure you remember it Mark, it was for Bulova Watches, it ran before a Dodgers Philly baseball game, it cost $9 to run the ad. So you guys know what that means right? It means we’re just a couple of weeks away from celebrating the 76th anniversary of running ads on TV without a fucking clue if anybody’s seen them or not. But I digress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GyxPQQAJzw
Today we’re here to prove to you that despite what Jerry Harvey and the captain of the Titanic here have to say, digital metrics are not full of bullshit and they are in fact the greatest gift that marketers of our generation could have asked for. First up, I’ll be looking at the alternatives. We cannot evaluate the quality of the integrity of digital metrics without looking at the alternative metrics we get from TV, radio, print and outdoor. It’s going to be fun and upsetting for a lot of you. Once we’ve shattered some dreams there, my co-pilot Ash Ringrose is going to be rounding out the definition of digital metrics. See, Ash is a nice guy and he just wants to make sure that when crazy old man Ritson goes bonkers calling things full of bullshit he actually understands what things he is referring to.
So let’s begin, and where better to begin that with TV, right? Because it feels to me like understanding what drives the metrics, the ratings, and ultimately the price behind AUD $3 billion worth of TV advertising here in this country would be a pretty important thing for us all to understand. Personally I was interested to see where 76 years of progress has landed us in terms of TV metrics reporting. I was not disappointed. TV media is metrics are measured and managed by the completely independent organisation OzTAM. OzTAM will tell you on their own website they are so independent that they are wholly owned by Australia’s three commercial networks, network seven, network nine, and network ten. No vested interest in improving metrics at all. But it gets better.
So, where do they actually get the information of what is being watched in nine million Australian households? Well, I’m glad you asked. You see, OzTAM employ a merry band of telemarketers who interrupt mealtimes across this country looking for about 5,000 truly representative households who are not on the do not call registry, home and available to take a call, happy enough or lonely enough to actually talk to a telemarketer, and are willing to have a random box placed in their living room which records everything they watch. And there’s more.
The way these boxes actually know who’s watching TV is by the resonance and guests within that house manually telling OzTAM every time they leave the room using some sort of magical OzTAM remote control. That’s right guys, the data driving $3 billion of advertising spend are metrics from an audience that is not randomly sampled and self reporting. This is from people who will talk to telemarketers, let strangers into their house, and have no incentive one way or another monetary or otherwise to provide accurate information. In fact, they have an incentive to provide inaccurate information because it is way easier. Who can be bothered telling the magical OzTAM remote every time they get up to take a piss?
For some context, there was a wonderful study published in 2013 in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, and this looked at the behaviour of almost 500 people who has suffered respiratory infections and their behaviours around taking their antibiotics. It found, shockingly, that 70% of these guys missed some of their tablets, they forgot to take some of their tablets, leaving an adherence rate of just 30% for something as life critical as taking antibiotics after a serious respiratory infection. So honestly, what adherence rate can we expect from our telemarketing-friendly families, when it comes to telling the OzTAM remote that they’re off to make a cuppa? This is total fucking bullshit.
In case you were wondering, this exact same combination of representative sampling and self reporting failed to predict both Trump and Brexit within just the last 12 months. Turns out when you ask people things, sometimes they forget and sometimes they just fucking lie. And as embarrassing and archaic as what I’ve just described is, our TV rating system is not only the self-proclaimed gold standard, but it’s actually the darling of Australia’s TV advertising world. At least the OzTAM remotes are electronic.
Let’s spare a thought for the almost 12,00 participants out there completing radio surveys in 2017. These guys take with nothing more than good intentions a paper diary, ballpoint pens and fucking stickers, these poor guys and gals are required to manually fill out this paper diary every 15 minutes for an entire week. That’s over 400 manual entries per participant. And what is even crazier than taking out your workbook in rush hour traffic with no incentive is that the industry openly acknowledges that this is a memory test, people are asked what they remember listening to. I don’t even remember my kid’s birthdays! These metrics are driving $1 billion of advertising spending in this country, what the fuck is going on here? Total fucking bullshit.
Outdoor media is calculated using yet another world class methodology, we really are the lucky country. It’s a methodology called move and this revolutionary system is determining the rates behind $700 million spend in outdoor, built entirely around a concept called “likely to see.” Nothing says rock solid fucking metric like “likely to see”. In the list of factors that determine likeliness to see include something like proximity of a billboard to the kerb, which side of the road it’s on, and all sorts of other wonderful things. But how do we even know if the people we’ve paid for who are likely to see our billboard ever even saw it? We don’t, because their are no metrics. So if there are no metrics and we can’t prove things one way or the other, then it’s wonderful because we don’t have to worry about such annoying things such as rebates or recourse for all of those people we paid for who were “likely to see” but never actually saw it.
To round it up, I would love to talk about how readership and circulation were calculated in print, but since major publishers Bauer Media, Pacific magazines and News Corp all threw their toys out of the pram last year and withdrew from the audited media association of Australia’s Independent reports, it is really anybody’s guess. Why, you might ask? They will tell you they were not happy with the metrics being reported in the independent audit. Total fucking bullshit.
Ladies and gentlemen, clearly digital metrics are not without issues, but at least let’s be sensible and mature enough to realise that the issues are to do with our own shortcomings, interpreting the oceans of data that is now raining down upon us. This is light years away from the bullshit cocktail of apathy, arrogance, and deceit that sits at the core of metrics in every traditional channel and has done so for decades. To wrap up, it is insane to put digital metrics on trial when by comparison, traditional metrics don’t even exist. When it comes to traditional metrics, we’re all victims of habituation. We’ve been sniffing the bush around it for so long, we don’t even notice the smell any more.
Affirmative: Louise Barrett, executive general manager, Newscorp national sales
I didn’t realise we were here to debate all the other metrics? I know they’re not all equal. I think the most important fact that I’m going to make – and no, I’m not going to be funny, I’m not going to be hilarious – but I’m going to send a really important message.
We know that all metrics aren’t equal and I think the key that I want to make here is that third party, independent measurement is key. So let’s just quickly diverge, because all other media owners disagree with their vision systems at times, we know that, there were plenty of times at Channel 10 when we thought the ratings were better than they actually reported, let me tell you.
But as a media owner, we knew the value of an independent industry measure. We might have disagreed with it, but we supported it. The problem we had in digital was that media owners recognised the need for independent measures, but tech companies like Google and Facebook pick up the ball and go home when they don’t like it.
Digital is the new kid on the block, it has the biggest house, so people question and ask: “How the hell did that happen?” Actually, it’s not just a house, it’s an entire block of all different sizes and dimensions, and that then makes it hard to measure. The industry is incredibly complicated, and the complexity of the digital value chain is not one size fits all. This means independent measurement is critical.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) actually delivers that independent measurement system. It’s independent, and it’s transparent. Industry data is inclusive and reports on all properties in an equal manner, regardless of their involvement with the IAB. That’s to provide the industry with comparable data on all players.
It’s a transparent system that tracks over 6,500 media organisations, brands and channels. It’s reviewed by the IAB’s measurement council, which has representatives in 17 media organisations and the Media Federation of Australia (MFA). The IAB requires Nielsen to undergo annual independent audits as well. But as with all industries, you’ve got companies that are willing to invest, companies like News Corp, companies like Fairfax, like Yahoo! 7 – premium content producers who are committed and happy to have independent metrics. Companies that are comfortable standing by their numbers. So let’s take News Corp. We believe measurement is important, and we don’t mark our own homework.
Others, however – back to Google and Facebook – are cowboys. The problem with our industry is you’ve got all sorts of players, and we all end up getting thrown into the same bucket. Then you have a case where all digital ends up hurting, because people are scared. It’s a bit unfair actually, because there’s some of us in the industry who deliver time and time again, and more importantly, deliver for Australians by providing professionally generated content. The biggest issue we face as an industry is trust. The fact is, that Facebook and Google are the ones that people don’t trust, because they measure their own homework, and they measure it badly.
People have talked about Facebook before, and their issues of reporting, they’ve had no less than four statements of ill reporting, and they continue to avoid being transparent by limiting third party measurements of campaigns run by their platform. Their metrics are bullshit. They’re not playing by the rules, why don’t they stand up and start using industry standard data?
Now, let’s talk about Google. Do you know where your ads are running? Next to content that someone else created. Content that can’t deliver you with brand safety. It’s like all care and no responsibility, we’ll take your money, but who knows where your ads are going to go? Google don’t see themselves as a media company, they see themselves as a tech company, so they don’t care about the quality of the content, just the quantity.
Advertisers need to find the right partners, they need to ask the right questions, they need to talk to the companies that are playing by the rules, the companies that care about content and how it’s measured. The right partners will deliver for them, because they deliver audiences for themselves every day through professionally generated content, so you know where your ad’s appearing, and it’s appearing in a brand safe environment.
News Corp, as you would know, is a member of the IAB, as are many companies, and we’re committed to the digital industry, we believe in what we do, and we can back up what we do with independent data. So my message is stay close to your agencies, and stay close to the metrics. We’re working hard with the IAB to improve our measurement and the launch of daily digital content rating shortly will provide more detail granular, comparable data across digital publishers. Agencies should be working hard to be as transparent as possible to their clients in terms of what and whom they’re delivering.
My final point is that all digital measurements should focus on helping marketers achieve effective, and efficient outcomes. Make sure you know what digital metrics are bullshit. The IAB metrics aren’t. So if you care about independent, digital metrics, then as an advertiser, or people who are booking ads for agencies, you need to support those of us who do play by the IAB rules, and who do support the industry standard. Currently, your investment decisions say you don’t care about independent measurement, because you’re investing in tech companies that don’t provide it. These are the guys with the bullshit metrics.
Against: Ashleigh Ringrose, Soap Creative co-founder
I can see why Mark and colleagues and you guys think digital is bullshit, I really do. It’s because it’s complicated. There’s a lot of numbers going around. I’ve been doing this since 1999, and every day I’m still learning. It’s evolving, it’s expanding, it’s changing daily. Then you’ve got people like Mark, who are like the climate change deniers of the marketing industry.
We’ve all seen his type: they’re loud, they’re well-spoken, they’re opinionated, and they’re smart, but they’re also ignorant to any views, and information that doesn’t confirm their world view. They revel in controversy, they love the sound of their own voices. Why? Well, because if it bleeds, it leads. Having a moderate discussion doesn’t get anyone excited. But I’m not going to deny the kinds of points that Mark has brought up over the last couple of years – and try and guess which one I made up, because they’re all full of hyperbole. There are some major points that we need to shed some light on.
So where to start? I’ll start with non-human traffic, or, attack of the bots. It’s a scary thing. Mark loves sharing this graph, which shows that from the world federation of 50 old CMO guys, 88 – 98% of clicks on these channels were bots, that’s outrageous. However, I actually read the report, all seven pages of it. I don’t think Mark read the report, because he gave credit to the wrong people for the report. It wasn’t the World Federation of Advertisers who suggested that, it was just in their compendium.
How much do reckon they spent writing this report? £100. Ahh. Would you write up a $2-300 billion dollar company because someone spent less that what you’d spent on a round of drinks? I call bullshit so much that I actually paid for them to run the research again with my own money. I used Facebook because it was the most familiar to me, and I spent $1,200 of my own money writing the study. The result? 24%. That’s not great, but it’s not 94%. I asked him: is this usual? And he said, yeah, that’s about usual. There’s hundreds of pieces of data out there saying anywhere between two to 98% adbot traffic. So which one is it? It’s a bit of a riddle. I don’t know.
The thing is, ad fraud is real, and I’m not denying that. Ad fraud is in every single medium, the thing is, with this, you can detect it. If they can detect the bots, you can too. That’s the power of digital. There are companies that can help you detect it. Some of them specialise in it, some of them are actually here. You guys, the marketers, the ones spending all the money, you guys need to start asking harder questions, you need to start actually being smarter about how you spend your money, because with digital you can.
There are answers to these issues. And if a publisher doesn’t want to run with these guys and won’t authenticate the spend, don’t work with them. These guys will help you. Bots could be 2%, they could be 98%, it seems no-one knows, but you have the power to learn for yourself because you can detect it. It doesn’t seem like bullshit to me it seems you just have to work a lot smarter, you can’t just spend your money blindly and hope for the best. No, you have to go a bit harder.
Facebook used to count a video view as three seconds. Now it’s ten. Facebook use five seconds for their true videos, after five seconds you get charged. Five seconds? That’s not enough time. I love this research from an eyetracking study, almost half – 40% – of all press ads are viewed for one second. What’s going on? That’s bullshit. 60% of all press that you’re buying aren’t even viewed for one second! That’s bullshit. That’s because people’s attention spans are getting shorter. We’re so busy arguing over three seconds, one second, ten seconds, we’ve forgotten about what we actually want to do which is to sell to people. We have to adapt.
Everyone’s saying how Facebook do it without sound: “Sound! Everyone needs sound.” But actually, the world is changing, and it’s dominated by mobile phones, and these platforms are adapting the usage to people’s lives, which are dominated by mobile phones. So many have adapted their content to their channels, and so should we, because attention spans are getting shorter.
The world is consuming a lot of video content in silence. They’re viewing it in portrait. If you went to a cinematographer and said “we want to shoot this thing in portrait”, they’d kill you. No-one wants to shoot in portrait, but that’s how people are consuming it. It’s not bullshit, it’s human behaviour. Don’t fight it, adapt.
But what if five or ten seconds don’t help you? I don’t get about ten seconds, I want to know how many people watched till the end of my ad – you can! You can drill down and you actually have the real data there. With all other media, it’s guesswork. How many people watch it 75% of the way through on your TV? I don’t know. I guess, 22%?
Let’s talk about digital more than just social media. And I know – it’s not marketing, it’s not digital, all we’re talking about is social – it’s the tip. Just talking about a few errors on Facebook of Google? Digital is more than just marketing. If you’re using digital channels as just a marketing tool, then you’re not using it to its full potential.
What is the most unsexy digital channel you can think of? Email. The death of email. Poor email, it’s been dead for ten years according to this. It’s not just unsexy, but now we’re going to say email’s full of bullshit? Don’t tell that to Red Planet, a spin off from Quantus, who are using 27 years of frequent flier data to make loads of really strong campaigns that get results. Tell them it’s all bullshit. Tell that to Woolies, tell that to Coles, who are spending millions investing in data and metrics to make their campaigns better.
We spend $23 billion on online retail alone. Online retail has grown really quickly. How? By using behavioural data. Not paper diaries, not sticker sheets, but real behavioural data. Take Showpo, she’s grown her company into a $25 million yearly run rate, and there’s no rules, she probably didn’t even have a business plan. She probably doesn’t even have an MBA.
So I’m going to put out a proverbial olive branch to my fellow debaters and say, you know, take off the bullshit-coloured glasses. Just take them off. Don’t be scared, and have a think about what we all need to do, we all need to make a decision. It’s time for everyone in this room to make a choice. We can either throw out the digital metrics, and stick with what we’ve got, or we can embrace digital, and challenge ourselves to arm ourselves with knowledge and not defend ourselves with ignorance.
Re: Digital Metrics
Are we in a better position then 10 years ago? Yes. Better then 5 years ago? Yes. A year ago, yes! So we are on the right track. Let’s focus on our homework and ignore the mosquitos.
Note: At a day and age where we are discussing gender equality, in other words ‘respect to women’, Mark Ritson’s penis analogy is sexist, tasteless, unprofessional, has got nothing to do with the debate and shows the times he is living in. Unlike the people in the crowd, i don’t find it even a bit funny. Seriously people? As an industry maybe it’s time we stop encouraging him? It’s becoming embarrassing for all of us.
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Thanks for the opportunity Tim to deliver a good beat down 🙂
I flubbed the closing statement but I hope we made people realise that the hyperbole and ignorance of some in the marketing community about digital doesnt help anyone. (Well it helps when you have ThinkTV and CRA as clients)
Let’s all focus on the future rather than protect the status quo.
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Excellent and a more than necessary discussion!!
I love that we are putting pressure on digital to improve the quality and validity of the data from a business perspective, and also, that we are pushing for all other advertising forms to fully integrate with digital…
Please keep organising this debates!!!!
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YES!! 100 times yes.
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It’s sad that the best defence of digital metrics is a smug criticism of how old media is measured. It’s also sad that some of their arguments verge on personal criticism. It’s even sadder that these panellists from the communications industry think that swearing adds impact to their argument.
Time to move on.
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From what I can see, Ritson is the only independent voice in this debate, he has no vested interest in rubbishing digital – yet is somehow labelled the ‘climate change denier of the marketing industry’? Really?
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Indeed!
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Digital is the future. ‘Time to to move on’… indeed!
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Having the blinkers on obviously pays well.
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Dan “Attack the man, when your argument is weak” Monheit.
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Powerpoint and personal attacks from the digital metric proponents… a classy presentation.
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Ritson has built a career on the speaking circuit based on rubbishing digital, without actually ever offering up any alternative solutions. “If it bleeds, it leads” he’s no different from hypebole ridden click-bait in power point form. I feel sorry for his MBA students, they would be better off at a different university.
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“As an industry maybe it’s time we stop encouraging him? It’s becoming embarrassing for all of us”
Sorry, there were hundreds of people in that room, many of whom are industry’s brightest and most experienced minds – a good representation of the industry. There was no awkward silence at the jokes, the audience was packed into a room and everyone was laughing. As someone who was standing by the door, no-one left in disgust.
Perhaps it is you that is out of touch and you’re too concerned with your own self importance?
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hundreds of people…who voted in favour of Ashley & Dan’s team. (Not Mark Ritson). This shows out of touch he is with the industry, penis joke or no penis joke. He is clearly out of touch.
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Can someone please tell Louise that both cowboys (Facebook and Google) are members of the very same IAB she is touting? Oh and I’m pretty certain they are part of the IAB’s independent measurement she refers to as well.
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So you’re suggesting the audience voted against Ritson because of his penis jokes? How did you draw that conclusion?
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Why is a penis reference sexist?
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When you play the man and not the ball, you lose any moral authority to claim the debate.
Caveat: unless you’re running for the President of the USA
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That’s all Ritson’s got? That Facebook and Google have made measurement mistakes that they admit to … That’s what all this Ritson fuss is about? Goodness, I thought there was more to it. It’s not even counter-intuitive or clever. What about the structural, inbuilt bullshit of analogue metrics such as newspaper readerships and TV ratings? Having said that, I must admit it’s always great to hear a bloke talk about his old fella at an industry event.
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Hi Tim,
Is that comment meant to be ironic or did you just forget to include your actual argument before anonymously attacking the man?
In case you didn’t watch the presentation before commenting, I actually spent my ten minutes rubbishing the ‘metrics’ behind traditional media.
Apologies if you’re a fan of self reported data from non representative samples, paper diary based memory tests or the like from driving your/your clients brands.
Dan
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*for driving (autocorrect)
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“I measured how big my tits were”
“I measured how tight my pussy was”
Would we accept these analogies vs the cock measure?
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Interesting that the two people who spoke on digital have come back and commented here. It’s only made things worse. As someone who has been around the business for a while, the question I hoped the digital experts would answer would be the one about whether my money is well spent on digital. I’ve lived through years of arguments about readership surveys, Tv diaries, OzTAM and the rest. And along with my agency have worked out which measures are relevant and which aren’t. I’m not looking for advice from digital evangelists on how to manage old media nor wanting a debate about whether Mark Ritson is right or wrong.
I just want to know what return I’ll get on my “digital” investment. My board would like some proof that it works. Ideally in terms of extra sales.
You see the choice for a client like us isn’t actually about digital v traditional. It’s about whether we spend any money with you at all.
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hey “A client says”: to be clear the debate was on “are digital metrics full of bullshit” NOT on whether digital is worthy of investment. We had 10 minutes and needed to stay on point. Get in touch if you want to discuss ROI via the various marketing options available.
And yes to the other comments: we played the man as he was the “draw card”. We used the same techniques / jokes back at the opposition. It was meant to be a fun debate. You also win a debate with people’s hearts not minds. Mark knows this and it’s why he’s much more showman than scholar now.
And as for the “independent voice” of Ritson. I would say that seeing Mark’s face all over sponsored events/articles from ThinkTV and CRA materials would influence his ability to stay impartial.
All said and done I’m glad we got to give a counter to the typical digital is terrible rhetoric lately. I wish we had a longer and more back and forward discussion vs a debate as it’ll foster more meaningful thoughts and hopefully outcomes on how we can all move forward.
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Tribal instincts certainly ring true in this thread. I am trying to assess if it is camps v camps or progressives v conservatives? Either way marketing is about a mix people. Let’s face it, we have never really been able to understand ‘readership’, when so many cowboys add their BS to the stats. Real time data, is priceless and money men use Google Trends to predict where they place their cash.
Believe the science not the spin and remember that a mix usually produces the goods, even if part of that, quite simply, cannot be tracked 100% to the cent.
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Sorry Ricky, but I agree, how is a penis reference ‘sexist’?
How does that insult women?
Your first example seems perfectly fine as an equivalent (the second weird).
You can say the example is vulgar, but it’s not sexist.
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How is a penis reference ‘sexist’?
How does that insult women? Is not having a penis now an offense. If you want say it’s vulgar, but it’s not sexist.
Not everything has to be about the gender inequality discussion.
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thanking for a (self-declared) beat down? saw your comments on linkedin making fun of ritson. very professional mate – says a lot about you.
enjoy your 2min in the spotlight at the cost of your reputation – who is the one on stage resembling donald trump
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Mr Ringrose
I put up with the fact that at Mumbrella360 neither you nor your debating partner addressed the debate topic on the day. You did not defend digital metrics, you took the piss out of me and attacked the metrics of TV, radio and print media. Neither of which were relevant. There was, as I noted on the day, not one single argument on the topic of the discussion.
You played “the man” not the ball repeatedly during the session which I accepted. Being compared to Donald Trump and having “humorous” photoshopped pictures of me all over your presentation was not pleasant but I’ve had worse and if that was your argument then so be it.
But this comment of yours here in this thread totally pisses me off. Despite what you and your debate partner might think you did not use the “same techniques” as the other side. In my talk and in all my other presentations for Mumbrella, with vigour and certainly not to everyone taste, I attack the topic not the man or woman behind the topic. I might say I disagree with someone or that I think they are wrong but I don’t let that devolve into personal attacks. So please do not tar me with your sordid comedy brush. If you think a debate consists of putting up altered pictures of me and comedy soundbites of my speeches than so be it, but don’t put me in the same dirty bucket please.
But what really pissed me off about your comment on this thread above is you deciding that “Mark knows this and its why he’s much more showman than scholar now”. I’m sorry what? Do not speak for me! I do 2 or 3 of these talks a year. I do not charge any money. Tim asked me to make this “light hearted” so I did. The penis thing probably was not the best way to debate empirical metrics but hey you get it wrong sometimes. But I am not some “showman” – for the other 300 days of the year I am either teaching very good MBA students at Australia’s top business school or I am working for large companies on marketing strategy or I am trying to write serious stuff about the state of marketing and brand equity. I accept that my last big academic publication was back in 2013 but that was a big ethnographic study, published in the JCR, by me and my PhD student who had just finished his 4 year thesis on advertising and contextual effects.
I do not want to sound up myself or that I take my self entirely seriously – people who know me, and you don’t, will tell you netiher of this things are true – but you do not get to go on a public forum and tell everyone what “I know” or that I am a “showman”.
And How dare you suggest in any way that I am not impartial and in someone’s pocket. Clearly I have a point of view but it is not swayed by anyone’s money. I am my own man. To date this year I have been paid not $1 by any media body to say or do anything. I get a small fee for my newspaper column but that’s it.
Oh, actually, I lie. I was paid for 2 days work by LinkedIn this year to speak for them. So there you go. I will be doing a day of paid work for ThinkTV in September – the first talk I have ever given for them. I also did a session for Google last year too. So what is your point?
I said what I said at Mumbrella because I think it. Not because someone pays me to say it. You are not obliged to agree with my POV, but how dare you state that I am “not impartial”. You’re the one selling digital marketing services and talking about the power of digital. I am the one paying for my own flight and hotel to share my point of view.
Given the very public way you have done this mate I really think you should send me, via this forum, a public apology. I do not expect or even want you to agree with me. But I draw the line at you writing shit like this here for colleagues and friends of mine to see.
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Where to start?
If you’re going to bag other metrics you really should know a bit more about them than gossip and hearsay.
For example, “sticker” diaries for radio. The ‘sticker’ is actually from a list of smaller stations that would normally be under “Other”. Oh, and by the way, trials of personal meters and phone based apps have shown that while they track switching patterns and the like very well, they miss a hell of a lot of listening which would falsely reduce the ratings.
And regarding OOH and its Likelihood-To-See you’re not in the same postcode and not even in the same state! It is the OOH equivalent to the internet’s ‘viewability’. People pass a sign (Opportunity-To-See) but not everyone sees it (Likelihood-To-See) so the ‘rating’ is reduced. It’s a bit like an ad being served and (I) not being on a page in focus or (ii) not being seen – something that internet measurement is starting to address after a couple of decades (because they had to admit it was happening).
And at least TV requires 1 minute of viewing to be counted as a viewer of a program and not 50% of the screen for 2-seconds as per MRC’s viewability standards. Imagine what the numbers would be if it was 1 minute! And for a publisher’s site you are credited as a ‘viewer’ to the site if you clock up 2 seconds in a month!
I also don’t recall any of these long-time august digital devotees raising any concerns when back in the PEE (pre-iPhone era), the Monthly Unique Browsers for Australia was over 25 million every month of 2006 despite the population being just over 20 million and with only 80% having an internet connection.
The good news is that internet measurement is improving with the focus now on audience and an upcoming shift to day-by-day data.
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For the public record: I’d like to unreservedly apologise to Mark Ritson for my previous ill informed and rude comments. It’s too easy to get swept up in the snarky chatter that is online comments. Not cool at all and unacceptable for someone in my position in the industry.
I also want to specifically call out the following wrong comments I made;
1: On Mark being more than a showman than a scholar. This was a low blow and mainly because I have little knowledge of Mark’s work. He’s a consultant and scholar first and foremost. The public speaking element is a small part of who he is.
I was more praising his entertaining speaking skills. The likes of which tried to emulate to disarm him in the debate.
2: On Mark’s “independent voice”: Mark has shown me that the recent payments from Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) and other “traditional”
media are of such a tiny % to his earnings that it would be stupid to suggest this influences Marks impartiality. I would also say Mark’s experience and integrity wouldn’t be influenced by money. He’s also the kind of guy that would say what he likes no matter who is listening.
Sorry Mark. We’ve all got better things to do than throw shade at each side. The debate is out there I’ll let everyone have their own opinions and leave mine to myself.
Last Point: This debate was meant to be a fun not an attack on individuals. I hope we can all focus on meeting in the middle instead of bunkering down on each side.
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Dear Old School CMO,
I’m not sure why your comments are personal, both about Mark and his MBA students, but as one of his students I feel the need to respond to your aggressive comment.
Mark is unequivocally one of the BEST lecturers at MBS with a constant waiting list to each of his classes. He’s an absolute legend – incredible lectures, convinces non-marketers to see the value in marketing and actually gives a shit – whether it be our careers, our projects or just general interests (including negroni tastings).
He does provide alternative solutions specifically to digital. It’s Media Neutrality and integrated marketing communications, meaning do the right thing for your company based on your strategy whether it includes digital or not. He’s communicated this across multiple platforms – articles, seminars, and his lectures. I highly recommend having a read or watching a video.
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A brave apology.
Would be great if Mark too checked himself and realized that he doesn’t need to swear any more in order to overcompensate for being a “academic” (it’s nd
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Well done with this apology. Maybe now Mark will also apologise for his use of swearing in order to overcompensate for a perceived lack of real world exper
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A brave apology, especially as Mark continually plays the man by name-calling on Twitter as well, but attacking his career and background isn’t on.
Hopefully Mark will also apologise for his overuse of swearing which comes from overcompensating for his need to be seen as an industry insider (it’s ok Mark, you can drop it now, it’s a bit 101), and also actually apologise for his completely inappropriate penis analogy – doing the whole hey I get it wrong sometimes doesn’t cut the mustard. Mark, what was it inside you that made you think the best analogy involved your dick? Seriously, in these times that was the best you could do? You are way better than that.
Mark, if you can’t see what the problem is on this one, then you may need to do a bit more study. Comments like these of course rarely tend to get a reasonable response and in fact get responded to with defensiveness, insults and ridicule.
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there is some irony: accusing one side of being like donald trump, while choosing personal rants over arguments … so whos acting like the don?
BTW: not sure if making fun of CMOs and MBAs (=senior executives) is a smart move – small reminder: who is paying your bills as an ad agent?
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