Why the Media Rating Council is Poised to Become Even More Crucial

New Innovid research shows 86.8% of advertisers place a high value on MRC accreditation  

As the 100% digital future of TV approaches, the measurement of TV advertising performance is in flux. Various organizations—including publishers, brands, agencies, and industry watchdogs—are conferring about currency, ratings, impressions, and other ways to gauge ad performance.

This may be a confusing time, but it’s also a time filled with great promise. In the 100% digital future of TV, the performance of TV advertising is poised to grow increasingly more measurable—an incredibly positive reality for advertisers. 

In this new, digital- and data-driven world, TV advertisers will no longer have to rely on panels and approximations of how many viewers saw their commercials. Instead, they will know exactly how many viewers encountered their TV spot—and the Media Rating Council will remain the indispensable organization verifying these impressions. 

Formed in 1964, when it was known as the Broadcast Rating Council, the MRC has always existed to ensure that advertisers are getting the value they paid for. From the beginning, the MRC’s mission can be summarized in the following three points: 

• Ensure services are valid, reliable, and effective. 
• Advance and outline minimum disclosure and ethical criteria. 
• Supply and execute an audit system to inform users and establish criteria for media measurement.

Advertisers understand the value the MRC delivers and believe the organization remains essential. A recent Innovid survey of more than 250 brand and agency professionals found that 86.8% of respondents identified MRC accreditation as “important” when it comes to the data they use to “generate measurement insights.” 

When we count just agency professionals, they value the MRC at an even higher rate, with 90.5% describing MRC accreditation as important. The larger TV advertisers, those spending $5 million or more annually, were even more reliant on the MRC, with 92.4% of respondents saying the organization’s accreditation was important. 

“With billions of dollars at stake, it is critical that the ad industry has full confidence in the measurement providers they use and transparency into the methodology that is employed,” says George Ivie, CEO and Executive Director of the Media Rating Council. “That is the role we play — to serve as a neutral and independent third party that establishes quality standards in conjunction with both buyers and sellers and ensures, through a rigorous audit process, that providers are in compliance with those criteria that the industry says are most important for effective and quality measurement.” 

We at Innovid agree that the MRC is crucial. Our MRC-accredited status isn’t just a logo to put on a website; it’s proof of our commitment to accountability and trustworthy reporting. Our media-agnostic, independent nature ensures that our focus is on discerning accurate, unbiased ad performance insights. We are a partner prioritizing accurate and honest metrics to evaluate your media strategy. 

In this era of transition, we have built our InnovidXP platform to elevate the measurement conversation from ratings and programming to impression delivery, authenticated viewership, incremental reach, and performance outcomes. We believe it’s what advertisers want. 

Innovid serves 1.5 billion ad impressions daily. These impressions, which deliver measurement insights for brands, agencies, and publishers, are MRC-accredited, which provides an added layer of confidence and accuracy for our customers and partners. Becoming an MRC-accredited organization is a rigorous process, and the annual audits are equally thorough endeavors, taking five to seven months. 

Currently, Innovid is proud to say that we are MRC accredited for the following:   

• Video impressions in desktop
• Video impressions in mobile web
• Video impressions in mobile app
• Video impressions in CTV
• Video viewable impressions and related viewability metrics
• Display impressions in desktop
• Display impressions in mobile web
• Display impressions in mobile app
• Display site served tracked ads in desktop
• Display site served tracked ads in mobile web
• Display site served tracked ads in mobile app

We believe it’s worth it to ensure that the video impressions data that our advertisers receive is accurate and accredited. Not only does this impressions data inform advertisers of their reach; it also enables them to confidently gather performance insights from this data that can be used for creative and media optimization that can boost the ROI of a campaign. 

Versus, let’s say, accreditation for TV occurrence ad data, which is a linear-only accreditation that, in a nutshell, says nothing more than someone saw your TV ad.,

We also wanted to share our puzzlement as to why any platform or publisher, let alone an industry giant such as Google, would decide to opt out of the MRC accreditation process. In this era of transition, when we approach 100% digital reality for TV, it’s more important than ever to assure our brand, agency, and publisher clients that the impression data fueling the measurement insights they are receiving is completely reliable. We know our clients’ converged TV advertising performance is riding on it.