‘There is no roadmap’: Optus Sport head says brands are struggling with ‘complexities’ of cross-platform measurement
Brands aiming to achieve advertising outcomes, rather than just reach, are finding it increasingly difficult due to the complexities of cross-platform measurement, according to the head of Optus Sport.
Speaking to Mumbrella on the back of the hugely-successful 2024 EURO tournament, Clive Dickens, vice president of TV, content, and product development, suggested that the advertising industry is in a “challenging spot”.
Dickens said despite being one of the biggest media advertisers, the complexities surrounding cross-platform measurement remain a challenge for the Optus marketing team.
He said there are many discussions about which measurement system is better for tracking, viewership, and performance, whether it’s OzTAM (used for traditional TV), or the metrics used by pay TV, Disney, or Netflix.
Clive Dickens
“With advertising available on all platforms, as a brand and a big advertiser… it’s getting increasingly hard when you’ve got multiple measurements,” he said.
“We’ve really got to come together and think about cross-platform measurement.”
Highlighting the existence of cross-platform measurement for broadcast TV and BVOD, Dickens emphasised the need for a strategy to cover the rest of the market.
“At the moment there is no roadmap for cross-platform measurement where we can dedupe eyeballs and really measure outcomes,” he continued.
“There is not enough discussion about how advertisers, whether it’s Optus, Apple or others, can measure the ROI when they run ads on Netflix, Disney, Prime, Channel Seven, and Channel Nine.”\
Spain celebrating this year’s 2024 EURO win
Speaking directly to brands and media owners Dickens concluded: “I’m sure if you’re a brand listening to this, you’ll be in violent agreement… and if you’re a media owner saying, ‘It’s too hard, just get in a room – we have to fix it.'”
It comes after Dickens’ comments that Optus Sport has separated itself from the rest of the streamers with its coverage of international football, which also includes exclusive rights to the English Premier League and the recently-acquired Emirates FA Cup.
“We don’t directly compete with the fantastic products that come out of Kayo and Fox Sports,” Dickens said.
“We don’t directly compete with the amazing coverage that our free to air broadcasters give sports… but it’s really important for our increasingly diverse customer base to have this passion for the beautiful world game.”
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topics
2024 EUROs
advertisers
brands
Clive Dickens
cross-platform measurement
Euros
Optus
Optus Sport
As someone who thinks it’s ridiculous to have to watch ads when you PAY for a streaming service, Optus’ continual ramming down the throat tactic of running Hungry Jacks ads at every conceivable break means I’ll never buy from them ever again.
Think it’s a bit rich for their platform to be talking about something they have completely stuffed up.
Might be one to measure 😉
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Perhaps he should investigate the AANA, which indeed is working on a cross platform measurement solution.
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The pendulum will swing back soon enough where brands realise they’re not broadcasters and ditch the ownership of channels to focus on their core business, or an aggregator steps in to bring all the fragmented streams together under one package.
No, the Huddl mess doesn’t count. No one wants more hardware.
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