Lack of innovation isn’t a problem when it comes to advanced television and cross-screen measurement, because there’s lots of it out there, according to Radha Subramanyam. But the Chief Research & Analytics Officer at CBS wonders about the ultimate goal.
“I think there’s a ton of innovation, inventions, a lot of granular data in the marketplace,” Subramanyam says in this interview with Beet.TV at the CIMM Cross-Platform Video Measurement and Data Summit. “But I think we need to take a step back. I think we need to hit the pause button for a second and ask what we’re really trying to solve for.”
Subramanyam, who participated in a panel discussion titled Deduplicating Reach for Content & Ads: End Users Discuss Solutions from Comscore & Nielsen, hints at the role CBS might play in moving things along. “I think you have to wait a little bit for that. I think we will publicize that soon, but you should know that a lot of deep thinking is going into this because these are critical questions and we believe time is critical for leadership,” says Subramanyam.
As both a media company and a marketer, CBS wants data to “somehow speak to each other and to fit together. I can’t have different data sources telling me different stories. I’m a marketer and I produce premium content as a company and I need my advertising measurement as well as my consumer measurement to fit together and not be on two different paths.”
Addressing the “larger theme in America” of direct-to-consumer brands, Subramanyam notes that CBS is no stranger to that concept between CBS All Access and Showtime.
“A direct relationship with the consumer so you can understand them better and really super serve them is important, and that’s as true of the Super Bowl as the Grammys as it is of Star Trek,” she says.
Asked for her views on cross-screen measurement, she stresses what CBS knows about its viewers. “Is there one person out there who adds it all up and gives it to me? Absolutely not. That being said, we have a very, very good handle.”
She believes the “insights function” at major media companies has become more critical than ever. “Because we are among the few people who have a full view as to what’s going on in the ecosystem and I would certainly say we understand our audiences very, very well.”
Subramanyam doesn’t think one-to-one marketing is necessary because not every consumer needs to be reached on a one-to-one basis. “Not everyone needs to be spoken to as an individual, and also creative can’t be produced for a single person. But I think thinking of groups of people and using the best in class identity solutions and identity data to do that is a good thing.”
