UKOM in final stages of consultation

Measurement body moves into final stages of consultation with UK advertisers and agencies and remains on track for 2010 product launch.

Friday, 29 May 2009

The UK Online Measurement Company (UKOM) has moved into a critical stage of its development, and is reaching out to agencies and advertisers to drive the development of an online planning currency, remaining on track for a 2010 launch.

The body has enlisted both the IPA and ISBA to help facilitate discussions and constructive debate between all relevant parties within the marketing community, to ensure there is full agreement and budget to make the system a reality.

All tenders were received at the end of March, and since then UKOM has conducted an in-depth review of the submissions from Gemius/IPSOS, GFK, comScore and Nielsen Online. Following an extensive technical review, Nielsen’s has emerged as the leading tender.

UKOM is now in the final stages of bringing together media owners, agencies and advertisers to reach clear consensus and widespread support. As a part of this process, UKOM is entering preliminary contract discussions with Nielsen Online regarding the commercial and technical elements of the planning tool. It remains UKOM’s objective that a final announcement will be made in July on the official status of a unified base planning currency for the medium. The product is still on course to be delivered within budget ready for January 2010.

Mark Cranmer, who was appointed UKOM’s first chairman in May 2008, has now stepped down, to take on the role of chief executive of Aegis Media's digital agency network Isobar.

Guy Phillipson, CEO of the IAB and director of UKOM said: “UKOM has made terrific progress since its official establishment at the end of last year, particularly with an illustrious industry leader such as Mark Cranmer driving the project in its latter stages.

In this latest development, Nielsen have met all of the critical requirements of the brief, offering improvements over and above what is currently available in the market. And whilst we are confident that we can introduce an advanced system with transparency comparable to traditional media surveys, it’s now essential that we work with all the industry stakeholders to make it happen.”

Mark Cranmer, former chairman of UKOM said: 'I want to thank my UKOM colleagues for a productive start to the year. We are ahead of the schedule we set ourselves and are now in a position to engage all parties in the industry to assess if there is real appetite and funding for the base product that the industry challenged us to investigate last autumn. From UKOM's perspective we are confident that a solution is within the grasp of the industry and look forward to the next stage of engagement with all parties.'

For more information contact:

Amy Kean, senior PR and marketing manager, IAB, 07739372042 amy@iabuk.net

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