WPP's Xaxis Bids Buyers to Look at Digital Like Broadcast

GroupM's Beaumier says Xaxis wants to show consistency across audiences, better measure cross-platform campaigns

By Lindsay Rubino -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/19/2013 1:52:23 PM

WPP's GroupM is branching out its media-buying platform Xaxis in a bid take some of the share from TV. The firm is attempting to tie TV viewing to other platforms to show consistency across audiences, with the goal of better measuring cross-platform campaigns, according Ad Age.

Christina Beaumier, VP of product development with Xaxis, says matching TV programming schedules to set-top box data from I-Behavior (owned by WPP) will achieve that goal, the story said. Xaxis uses Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings and comScore's Validated Campaign Essentials to measure audiences, according to the report.

Though the end goal of many marketers is to steal away dollars from television, Beaumier said that "it's really about broadcast dollars and spending them in a broadcast fashion, whether it be online or on television," the report said.

A big question still looms, and that is whether to apply the TV-centric GRP standard to digital video. Without an industry standard, clients are left to guess, the story said.

"We owe it to our clients to figure it out....This is really our problem," Beaumier said in the report.

Additionally, Xaxis will create TV network-inspired video content in conjunction with 10 partners, according to the article. The inventory of video will be available in the third quarter, according to Beaumier in the story.