Media Buyers, Sellers Are ‘Frustrated with Status Quo’ of Measurement: VideoAmp’s Michael Parkes

Media companies and buyers of their TV advertising inventories for years have sought improvements in audience measurement. The need became greater when the pandemic spurred a sudden shift in viewing habits to streamed video.

“People are frustrated with the status quo and actively looking for change,” Michael Parkes, president of media measurement company VideoAmp, said in this interview with consultant Zach Rodgers at Beet.TV’s Beet Retreat. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us to solve some of the industry’s longest-standing problems.”

Parkes expects that media buyers and sellers will have more choices for TV ratings, helping to measure the value of reach, frequency and other benchmarks for ad campaigns.

“The legacy solutions have been undercounting cross-platform audiences for a long time,” he said. “Large-scale datasets are gaining acceptance as a reliable way to measure cross-platform and advanced audiences and business outcomes.”

VideoAmp currently preparing for the 2022 upfront sales season with a pilot program that includes most of the major ad holding companies and TV networks. The goal is to give publishers an accurate view of their linear and streaming audiences as they package them for advertisers that have their own key performance indicators (KPIs).

“For us, it’s not just about providing a replacement for the legacy systems,” Parkes said. “It’s about creating new value….We’re very focused on giving the market a viable alternative going into the next upfronts to be able to transact on.”

His company got its start in selling media planning and measurement software and tools to advertisers and agencies. It’s now expanding operations to provide services for media companies. VideoAmp in October raised $275 million to fuel its growth by adding more salespeople and engineers, among its other hiring plans.

“We really want to condense a three-year timeline and roadmap into one year,” Parkes said. “Our goal is to innovate faster than anyone else in the space.”