Grunther says that EDO is focused on how to capture the moment of impact for an ad, and specifically how to capture impact at the middle of the funnel.

“Everyone was at the top and hopped right to the bottom and attribution is terrific,” Grunther says. “But there is the ability in the middle of that funnel to capture impact when viewers are engaged and want to take an action. How do you capture that?”

The way he thinks of impact right now is the moment in which the viewer moves from passive to active. There’s exposure, attention, engagement and outcome, all of which are important and all are different measures of impact, but ignoring the middle-funnel metrics would mean losing out on a lot of key insights.

Part of finding a measurement that could be currency-grade requires thinking about scale. For the TV industry, this means being able to measure a small program on a cable network the same way that we measure a huge tentpole event like the Super Bowl.

“It’s basically being able to apply measurements and metrics to the entirety of programming regardless of how large or small the audience is,” Grunther says.

Reaching scale may be a huge step, but Grunther doesn’t necessarily believe that it will make the transacting process seamless. The buy side will look for accountability and proof of performance. Sellers, on the other hand, don’t want to guarantee anything that they don’t have to.

“In there lies this sort of conundrum and that is if you’re guaranteeing on outcomes or impact or other forms of effectiveness, it’s going to come down to what’s in it for both sides that is valuable for both,” Grunther says. “So I think we can get there, but ultimately the sellers are going to have to feel enough pressure from the buyers to basically adjust the way that they guarantee deals or conduct business.”

This video was produced  at the Beet Retreat San Juan 2020 sponsored by 605, DISH Media, NBCU, Roundel & Tubi.  For more videos from the series, please visit this landing page.