During a panel at LiveRamp’s RampUp conference in February, marketing executives from Quantcast and McDonald’s stated that they’d short sell OTT if it were a stock. Those bearish tendencies stem from measurement issues.
Because each OTT media channel has its own set of metrics—and users consume OTT content across multiple devices and platforms—piecing together an OTT campaign requires digital savvy and patience. This differs from TV, where advertisers use Nielsen ratings across large upfront inventory purchases.
“While OTT is the best of linear and digital, it doesn’t fit neatly into the measurement frameworks used by either,” wrote FreeWheel researchers.
TV industry professionals considered traditional TV measurements to be more valuable than OTT, according to August 2018 polling by SpotX and Kagan. However, four in 10 respondents valued them equally.