The newly expanded currency options will also be available with Warner Bros. Discovery’s advanced data-driven linear solution. The high-fidelity viewership data sets will allow Warner Bros. Discovery to yield greater efficacy and greater impact for advertisers engaging in audience-based buying, according to the company.

These new currency partnerships come following a test-and-learn for evaluating third-party measurement providers, which reviewed partners on methodology, reporting, activation, stewardship and campaign findings. 

“We were really thinking about this process from forecasting the audience to posting on the delivery. And that takes not just a looking under the hood and methodology this takes a real thorough analysis and a pressure test through our own pipes and through clients’ pipes to make sure that we can scale,” Zapata said. “Not just transaction for one, five or 50 campaigns, but to truly scale across all of our inventory so we can do real volume investments.”

Bottom line

The push for optionality in currencies continues more than a year after the Media Rating Council stripped Nielsen’s accreditation for inaccurate audience measurement nationally and locally early in the pandemic. In November 2022, the MRC voted to maintain the suspension of accreditation for Nielsen’s national ratings, according to a letter sent to clients viewed by Adweek.

In addition to the latest currency partnerships, Warner Bros. Discovery has been active in the push for alternative measurement, announcing in January that it reached an agreement with VideoAmp to measure cross-screen campaigns across the global media company’s portfolio.