Year: 2020

System Status – 7/14/20

Joseph Gray System Status

There is a sync issue that is impacting 2020 airings data in the new AVS dashboards.  Some duplicate airings are being pulled into the dashboards for 2020 causing the spend and airing counts to be inflated a bit higher than actual counts.  AVS Dashboard airing data for 2018 and 2019 is not affected and counts between AdSphere and AVS dashboard match.   The AVS Dashboard technical team is working on this issue and we expect resolution soon and we’ll update here.  A status message is being displayed when users log into AVS Dashboards to advise of the temporary airing count issue.

Update 7/15 – The sync issue impacting 2020 airings has been resolved.

System Status – 7/5/2020

Joseph Gray System Status

Capture Server went down on 7/3 at 21:22 ET.  The issue was resolved on 7/5 at 16:10 ET.  The following networks were impacted:  Food, Fox Business, Fox Sports 1 & 2, Fusion, FX Movie, FXX, and Golf.

We apologize for this issue and we’re researching the root cause.

 

 

System Status – 6/30/2020

Joseph Gray System Status

AdSphere Was Down for 60+ Minutes this Afternoon

We apologize for an issue that took AdSphere offline this afternoon.  No airings data was lost but our users were not able to reach and/or log into the system.  We’re still investigating what caused the problem.  We’ll post another update as soon as we have more details to share.

4:25PM PT Update – AdSphere is back online but the system is not stable at the moment nor operating normally.  We believe there is a software related issue creating a large number of database connections and overwhelming our web and database servers.  The development team will be isolating the issue in their new day and we expect to have resolution soon.  Adsphere should be back to normal by the morning, if not beforehand.  Again, we apologize for this inconvenience.

Covid-19 Impacts on Top DTC Television Advertisers

Joseph Gray AdSphere

San Diego. May 21, 2020. DRMetrix, the direct-to-consumer television industry’s leading research company, has released a new research paper showing the impact that Covid-19 has had on last year’s top 50 DTC TV advertisers. “Over the past five years, online and mobile-based companies have increased their TV expenditures an average of 26% each year exceeding 7 billion on national networks in 2019. During the national quarantine, however, the top 50 prior year DTC advertisers have collectively reduced their TV expenditures by 33.8% over the prior year period”, says Joseph Gray, CEO of DRMetrix. DRMetrix’s research shows that not all DTC advertisers have pulled back. In fact, some have taken full advantage of higher TV viewership levels, buying more ads than ever before!

For some, it makes sense to buy during a time when rates are significantly discounted while viewership levels are at record heights. They are not alone, other direct-to-consumer sectors have dramatically increased TV buys. For example, AS SEEN ON TV product campaigns have increased their ad frequency by as much as 135% since the start of the quarantine period. This is especially impressive considering AS SEEN ON TV ad expenditures were down over 26% in 2019.

DRMetrix’s new research paper provides insights into why some advertisers are measuring success and increasing their buys while others are pulling back. A full list of the top 50 DTC advertisers for 2019 is provided along with advertising expenditures for pre-quarantine and quarantine periods compared to the prior year. The full research paper can be downloaded by clicking here or visiting www.drmetrix.com.

About DRMetrix
DRMetrix was founded by industry veteran Joseph Gray who has been in the direct-to-consumer television industry for 30+ years. DRMetrix monitors over 130 national TV networks 24/7/365 using state-of-the-art automated content recognition software. Direct-to-consumer ads for all creative lengths are tracked including spot, 5-min, and long-form which include web addresses, mobile app response, SMS, or toll free numbers. DRMetrix works with leading agencies such as Horizon Next, Havas Edge, Group M, ID Media, Ocean Media, as well as leading television networks such as A&E, AMC, GSN, INSP, and Hallmark Channels. For more information, please visit www.drmetrix.com and be sure and download our latest direct-to-consumer industry study.

System Status – 5/28/2020

Joseph Gray System Status

Our development team pushed a new build of AdSphere this morning which is causing airing detail reports to download with no data.  The team is currently working to rollback the latest build or fix the underlying issue.  We thank our clients who reported the issue!  We hope to have airing detail reports working properly in the short term.  Thank you for your patience while we fix this issue.

8:10AM Update – Rollback of AdSphere build has resolved this issue.  We apologize for any inconvenience.

System Status – 5/12/2020

Joseph Gray System Status

We have a capture server that went offline end of last week that our technical team has been working to resolve.  It is impacting the following four networks that are currently offline.  Create, Comet, CW Network, and ION Network.  We apologize for any inconvenience and we will post an update when this situation is fully resolved.

5/15/20 Update – Underlying problem that caused the above issue was finally isolated and resolved today.  We apologize for the inconvenience and are glad to have these networks back online!

Real Time Competitive Dashboards

Joseph Gray AdSphere

Coming soon!

Easy to build, real time competitive dashboards are coming!  Creating these dashboards will be free to all existing AdSphere clients.  They will be configurable within DRMetrix’s AVS system and each dashboard can be customized for specific groups of brands & creatives.   Bundled with AdSphere, AVS access includes monitoring for unlimited creatives for up to 20 brands a year.  Any of these creatives or brands can be utilized with any number of easy to create dashboards!

Please click on the image below to launch our Youtube Video overview of the types of data visualizations that will be included in the first generation of these configurable competitive dashboards!

AdSphere’s Newest D2C Television Study

Joseph Gray AdSphere

DRMetrix released its newest 5 x 5 industry study today as a revision to its prior study released at the end of Q3 ’19.  The new study includes the complete data set for 2019 and well as an updated section regarding television attribution challenges & solutions.

5 x 5 Industry Study

DRMetrix has also been tracking the recent impacts of Covid-19 on the direct-to-consumer television industry by providing a daily/week interactive tracking page on its website.

On behalf of everyone at DRMetrix, we wish safety and health to all of our industry friends during these trying times.  We will get through this together and, for those of us spending quality time at home, we hope this ‘light’ reading material will help the time pass quickly.

Tracking the Daily Impact of Coronavirus on Television Advertising

Joseph Gray AdSphere

TV viewing should be on the rise due to the coronavirus pandemic leaving millions of Americans housebound.  For direct-to-consumer television campaigns, who are able to measure consumer response and campaign performance in real time, will greater television viewership levels help to sustain the industry or will there be a pull back?  The U.S. economy relies heavily on consumer spending so how consumers respond to this type of advertising in coming days will determine the impact to this 17.8 billion dollar industry sector.  If traditional brand advertisers pull back, will we see more direct-to-consumer advertising filling the gap and, if so, what types?

To help answer these questions, DRMetrix has published a new interactive chart on its website that shows the daily airing count (ad units) for different classifications of direct-to-consumer advertising across 130 national networks monitored by its AdSphere research system.  The chart shows ad units by day beginning March 1 and will update daily.  One can see a recurring decrease in ad units on weekends which is normal.  It may take a week or two before the chart begins to paint a picture of what’s happening.

CLICK PICTURE ABOVE TO SEE LIVE CHART

DRMetrix’s chart shows the ad units for different classifications of the direct-to-consumer television industry as follows:

Traditional Direct Response (“DR”) Campaigns 

(Campaigns using differing phone, web, or SMS codes in order to better track consumer results back to specific networks, dayparts, and TV creatives).

Short Form Products – Traditional call-to-order $19.95 types of campaigns.
Lead Generation – Campaigns that don’t advertise the full price of the product or service (ie: call for free information)
28.5 Minute Infomercials – Those late night program length advertisements

Brand/Direct Campaigns

(Campaigns using a single vanity phone or URL which makes it more challenging to measure the immediate impact of television)

Vanity 800 – Campaigns using a vanity 800 call to action
Web/Mobile/SMS – Campaigns that use a vanity web, mobile app, or SMS call to action

To learn more about these classifications, and historical trends over the past 5 years, please download DRMetrix’s latest industry study.

DRMetrix wishes to extend our thoughts and prayers for everyone’s safety and health during these trying times.  As an industry, we will get through this together.  Due to the cancellation of PDMI East, we will be celebrating our industry’s accomplishments, and honoring the top advertisers of 2019, at PDMI West in September.

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3/25/2020 Update – New “Cause of Change” section has been added to the report today.  For each brand classification, the top 10 daily brands are listed with the number of (+) plus or (-) minus ad units compared to the prior day.  Each brand listed includes a clickable play link.  Enjoy!

4/14/20 Update – Added toggle at top of graph to switch between daily or weekly data views.  Access historic cause of change results for any prior day or week by “clicking on” data points in top graph.