Kantar Video Pursues a Holistic Approach to Video Analytics

This morning I'm pleased to introduce Adam Wright, VideoNuze's newest contributor. Adam has a strong background in online video, having worked at NBCU in digital distribution, MySpace in branded content, and more recently at Tubefilter in research. Adam has a BS in Business and an MS in Entertainment Industry Management from Carnegie Mellon University. After 2 1/2 years of carrying the full daily editorial load at VideoNuze, it's great to have Adam on board contributing several times per week!

Kantar Video Pursues a Holistic Approach to Video Analytics
by Adam Wright

Kantar Video announced itself last week, but with the torrent of news coming out of both SME and the Cable Show, it slipped under the radar. So late last week, I took some time to talk with Bill Lederer, CEO of Kantar Video, who is a seasoned veteran in online and set-top box research, to get a better understanding of the company's holistic approach to their research/analytics service and the implications on the analytics space.

Kantar Video's "Videolytics," which is currently in a private beta, will be tracking everything from online video, advanced TV, and most interestingly mobile, which is a rapidly growing space. Kantar Video plans to combine this data with the extremely rich marketing data sets from other Kantar Media business units. Bill explained, "for instance, we're the world's biggest company in the attitudinal area. We're going to work with Dynamic Logic, TNS, [etc.]. We're going to capture things like ad expenditure data." In addition, he mentioned cross-referencing data from other sets such as demographics, psychographics, purchase data, and much more from other Kantar Media affiliated branches.

Kantar Video's overall goal is to create a decision system to harness all this data to provide relevant information for business decisions. As a result, Kantar Video's holistic approach might be considered a "Nielsen for online video" analytics/research service. While there have been many options for online video analytics and research, few have come to encompass this breadth of data, which will ultimately help users understand the implications of online video and online video advertising down through the purchase chain, helping grow and better monetize the space.

Though there's a lot of data already floating around, in Bill's opinion often it isn't entirely useful to decision-makers. As Bill put it, "The medium is producing Latin. The customers are in need of Greek." He sees Kantar Video as trying to answer tough questions from marketers. For instance, "What's the real ROI for investing in video? Online guys will talk about views, but marketers talk about how did it do relative to not just campaign execution, but the brand?"  Bill said, "We're trying to create a multi-channel solution - real time turn-around with deep domain expertise."

Kantar Video is trying to set itself apart competitively by focusing exclusively on analytics, as compared with others like TubeMogul and BBE's recently spun off Vindico who are also providing ad serving. Kantar Video has some similarity to analytics provider Visible Measures, but with more varied data sets and tools from other business units.

Finally, Bill was quick to trumpet that "we're able to bring in a significant number of advertisers and media companies. I think we'll have some quick validation." With a big name like WPP behind it, Kantar Video has a certain built-in credibility with many brands and advertisers, but Bill also stressed they are working with non-WPP companies as well. "We have built a career on coalitions and partnerships within and without in order to provide more value." In addition, they are preparing to go global quickly by building out their platform in many languages.

Kantar Video is definitely an analytics firm to look out for, with a company like WPP backing it financially and developmentally, it would seem to have some natural momentum. Only time will tell if it catches on, but either way, this means more competition in the analytics space.

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Categories: Analytics, Startups

Topics: Kantar Video, TubeMogul, VINDICO, Visible Measures