Fox, iSpot Aim to Deliver Faster Data Tying Ads to Business ‘Outcomes’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Advertisers are accustomed to getting quick info on how many people their commercials reach on TV day after day. Now Fox hopes to give them speedy data about something that many marketers consider even more important.

Fox and iSpot, one of a group of measurement-technology upstarts, are expanding their partnership to include data that tells sponsors whether their commercials resulted in meaningful business “outcomes,” such as the purchase of a movie ticket or a visit to a car showroom.

“Outcomes are incredibly important to brands beyond just measuring an impression,” says Kym Frank, senior vice president of research for Fox Corp., during a recent interview, adding: “We want to provide our clients with what they really need, which is, ‘Did what I buy work?’ Having this measurement at scale allows us to get smarter about optimizing plans, about what to expect in a specific category.”

Trying to link ads to consumer outcomes is a quest that has occupied many on Madison Avenue for years. But in the age of streaming, when video subscribers can actively interact with the content they see on screen, there is more pressure from advertisers to pay new attention to such elements. Fox in May unveiled a new data report for clients that offers evaluations of how commercials perform, looking at such things as whether commercials made consumers more aware of what was being promoted, whether the ads changed the amount of consideration consumers give to making a purchase, how much they kept viewer engaged, among other “outcomes.”

The partnership will make critical data available to all Fox clients, says Stuart Schwartzapfel, executive vice president of media partnerships at iSpot, and in more timely fashion. “Not just for the biggest spenders. And not six weeks after the fact,” he says. The data can fuel not only the strategies of national Fox advertisers, but also small and medium sized advertisers who are using connected-TV platforms, he adds.

Other companies have struck intriguing measurement alliances with iSpot in the not too distant past. iSpot and NBCUniversal worked together on a system that NBC had hoped would provide a strong alternative to Nielsen’s tabulations. When media buying agencies felt they were being forced to accept a vendor of NBC’s choosing, however, they grew diffident, allowing for others to also move on to the field.

The new agreement expands a relationship between Fox and iSpot that began in 2015, when Fox initially adopted iSpot’s real-time TV ad measurement capabilities across its portfolio. Since then, the partnership has evolved to include creative measurement, audience verification and business outcomes attribution across both linear and streaming environments.