New York -- The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement
has begun an initiative to study the feasibility of an open standard to track
and identify both entertainment content and advertisements across traditional
as well as digital media platforms.
"Project: TAXI" (for "track-able asset
cross-platform identifier") was designed in response to the growing
difficulty that content rights holders and advertisers face in maximizing the
value of assets, CIMM said. It's intended to cultivate transparency,
simplify accountability and improve economic efficiency across the value chain.
CIMM has partnered with the Association of National
Advertisers, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the American Association Of
Advertising Agencies on Project: TAXI.
"Given the staggering increase in the volume of
content available, it is harder and harder for media companies to track where
and how often their assets are consumed -- whether on TVs, PCs or mobile
devices," Jane Clarke, CIMM's managing director, said in a release.
"This project is intended to help companies understand how and where their
content is being viewed, so that they can effectively ascribe value to
distribution partners, advertisers and consumers."
CIMM asked Ernst & Young to meet with industry trade
organizations and commercial entities involved in asset identification,
tracking and measurement. Ernst & Young will conduct 30 to 40 one-on-one
interviews and small group workshops with industry executives to obtain their
points of view on the business, economic, technical and operational criteria
that could allow the industry to create a uniform method to track media assets
across television, broadband and mobile platforms.
CIMM said it expects to be in a position to evaluate results
with its members in early 2011, and present findings to the industry shortly
thereafter.
CIMM's participants are: AT&T, Belo, CBS
Corporation, Carat USA, Comcast Networks, Discovery Communications, Gannett, GroupM,
Hearst, Interpublic Group's Mediabrands, Microsoft, NBC Universal, News
Corporation, Omnicom Media Group, P&G, PepsiCo, ConAgra, Publicis Groupe,
Time Warner, Unilever, Viacom and The Walt Disney Company.
