Reuters: Advertisers Go Digital to Track Ads

The four major TV networks announced that they are complying with a marketer effort to standardize broadcast media tracking. The American Association of Ad Agencies (4As) and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) have been pushing their Ad-ID standard for the better part of two years. Media companies have been reluctant to comply because of additional costs, loss of control over the metrics of advertising and balky third party technology providers. Ideally, Ad-ID would allow TV commercials to be tracked in a fashion not unlike the online media panel studies already conducted to estimate internet site audiences. The technology promises to make media more easily accountable in a common fashion - assigning more accurate correlations between ads viewed and later results.