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GroupM Malaysia CEO Girish Menon calls Entropia's viewability claims misleading

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Late last month, marketing services firm Entropia promised clients 100% viewability. Prashant Kumar who heads up Entropia said that the company has struck collaborations with several top publishers in this regard, as well as with the most rigorous global ad fraud and brand safety platforms globally.In response to the promise, GroupM Malaysia CEO Girish Menon has released a statement saying the claim is misleading. He said:“With reference to recent announcement by Entropia claiming to have a 100% viewable offering, we feel that such claims can be misleading as they do not present the full picture of the digital advertising ecosystem.”According to Menon, GroupM launched its own 100% guaranteed viewable product, Xaxis Viewpoint across APAC in August 2015. He also referred to online news portal Star Online and said the publication too launched a "100% viewable product in mid-2015".When asked by A+M how the claim by Entropia was misleading considering GroupM too launched its own "100% guaranteed viewable product", Menon said:“We are not saying that the Entropia claim is misleading in comparison with the Xaxis’ offer or other offerings in the market. This is not about Entropia versus Xaxis, but rather that Entropia’s offer is misleading because many of the claims are not qualified in its last press statement - as per the standards and benchmarks (which are highlighted below). Also Entropia does not talk about the shortcomings of the market which makes a 100% viewability offering have limited practical value in the current context,” he added.Menon added that Xaxis Viewpoint is a full-fledged programmatic product enabled by not only the use of quality inventory, but artificial intelligence technology. In a nutshell, he explained these technology, data and quality inventory were couple with human expertise and were resources only available to large global networks because of the cost and global expertise required to build it.This capability cannot be cooked up by local start-up companies overnight.Menon added that there are many elements to improving transparency and effectiveness of online campaigns. Simply having a 100% viewable offering will not have much impact, given today’s limited measurable/ viewable inventory and the inadequacy of current global benchmarks."It is up to the global players to engineer the necessary changes in the standards and inventory quality,” he added.On this, Entropia agreed with Group M, adding that the company has in fact spoken about reach and cost elasticity dynamics, "though we do have some differences here with him". However, it defended its stance on 100% viewability saying that they were simply informing clients on their new capabilities through the announcement.In a statement to A+M, Entropia said:"We would welcome GroupM to join us in furthering the viewability standards in the industry. Their explanation of different dimensions of viewability adds more body to this debate, which is healthy, even though some of the points are rather simplistic. Their claim that they were the first to guarantee 100% viewability, is something we have nothing to say about - our story doesn’t talk about that. Also their claim that our story is misleading is something we would not like to comment on. The sentiment behind it has nothing to do with the viewability debate, and we wouldn’t want the focus on digital credibility here to go away."The firm also explained to A+M it in fact informed clients in detail of the shortcomings of viewability in the Malaysia market, but did not see it necessary to do in a long press statement.Moreover, Entropia said it chooses to “believe in the talent of its people rather than global muscle” when it comes to offering added fascilities to clients."We laud all efforts towards 100% viewability from GroupM or anyone. The more the merrier. This is the only way to bring the trust back on digital investment. And our story talks about that. We are happy to join him in a forum and debate it out there. We have also spoken about the industry to persuade inventory owners to offer measurable viewability-audited impressions. Especially since big agencies can make a lot of difference by taking an uncompromising stance," said the statement to A+M read.On the comment that startups can't "cook up" such offerings overnight, Entropia said:On behalf of all start-ups of the world, we believe that the emperor is naked more often than not. This is a classic statement of a big establishments.When asked by A+M to share his view on what 100% viewability actually means for clients and marketers, Matt Sutton, CEO of Adknowledge APAC said that ultimately the focus should not be on viewability which is a "media metric". He said viewability in isolation is not enough as there are far more relevant metrics.Viewability makes for a nice headline but it is not a business goal or marketing performance metric. The great thing about digital is that there are a plethora of metrics advertisers should rely on rather than simply viewability.He added that clients should be ultimately asking what their business goals are and how it translates to marketing goals. They then need to evaluate the right metrics for their marketing goals and scrutinise to see if this is achieved," Sutton said.Viewability lacks scaleAccording to Menon, viewability is an important consideration, representing quality inventory, but currently lacks scale."Today, about 60% -70% of available ad inventory is typically not measurable. And only measurable inventory can be certified as viewable. So, when someone talks about a 100% viewable campaign, such campaigns on their own are unlikely to have the volume to meet the client’s reach and frequency KPIs," he added. Therefore, advertisers will need to continue to buy low-cost non-measurable impressions, while blending in premium measurable viewability-audited impressions."This is exactly what happens in TV as well. Rarely do advertisers buy only 100% reach or only 100% quality, but instead buy a mix of reach and affinity (quality) GRPs," he said.Weighing in on the debate was Darren Woolley, managing director of TrinityP3 who said that ultimately the focus is on what the advertiser is wants, their audience, the formats they are using and if they are able to maximise their engagement - while limited to only those online environments that are verifyable. He said:To say one is right and the other is wrong is flawed as it depends on the strategy and the objectives of the campaign.The verification companies such as double verify, integral ad sciences and moat analytics can provide independent verification of viewability for the majority of that inventory but this comes at an additional cost. interesting that the agencies are not talking about this," he said.Woolley added that these companies can be engaged by the advertiser to hold the agency accountable for delivery, but till now, in most cases the media agency and trading desk engage the verification company . As such, this is not entirely an independent process.Menon also outlined several points to look out for when it came to viewability.Advertisers’ role in running successful viewability campaignsAdvertisers need to champion adoption of third party verification tools like IAS, DoubleVerify and MOAT and permit tagging of their display and video assets to truly benefit from access to viewable inventory. More of clients today are open to using neutral third party tracking platforms such as IAS and MOAT to measure the quality of the ads being served on their campaign.Coming from an advertiser/client perspective, Woolley said most advertisers simply want to ensure they are paying only for what they get and want to make sure they get it."Using third parties to verify is a great idea as long as they are truly independent and engaged by the advertiser and not the agency," he said.Defining viewabilityThe definition of a viewable ad itself as set by the IAB is inadequate, said Mennon. The global standard is half the ad pixels in view of minimum one second."This is why across the world, GroupM is engaging with publishers to establish these as the new standards of viewability and create a high quality marketplace adhering which delivers meaningful impressions for clients. This already been done in some advanced markets and these discussions are underway across Asia, including Malaysia," he added.Wooley added that the issue of defining viewability is an important one as there are so many definitions from 1 second to 14 seconds."If the Facebook issue of coming clean on the fact that the overstated viewing data on their video is not proof that the industry needs an aligned standard then what will?"

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