Panelists Peter Vaz, VP director, MacLaren McCann; Raymond Reid, managing director, Neo@Ogilvy; and Shane Cameron, managing director, OMD, discussed whether a broadly recognizable, standardized metric would be useful to the industry. The idea of a “GRP 2.0″ – some overarching, aggregated measure of engagement efficacy across media – was proposed and debated. The question was posed as to whether the industry needs to move away, generally, from media specific KPIs and develop a measure built on business results like sales, and brand lift that would account for the impact of mobile, TV, digital combined.

Vaz, cautioned against the industry making the same mistakes with mobile as it made with digital, in terms of adopting click-through rate as the sole criteria of success, because it offers a limited scope of true audience engagement.

“[CTR] is such an easy measure to track, from a digital perspective. That’s what [the industry] did with digital. Let’s not repeat that on mobile. I’m not saying it’s a metric we shouldn’t measure. We should look at it, but not as the sole measure on mobile,” Vaz tells MiC. “Let’s make sure we understand the capabilities [of mobile devices].” Vaz echoed the sentiment of the panel, saying that a wide array of metrics needs to be monitored, with different metrics being more relevant to clients with different KPIs.

Vaz admits a GRP for mobile is useful as a common currency to compare it with other media. “There are many advertisers who otherwise have a hard time understanding the value [without a GRP], and I think this gives them a yardstick to to say ‘if this is the GRP on TV, and this is the GRP on mobile’ that will give them perspective,” he says, adding that the less complicated the measurement, the more likely it will be to influence clients to shift their advertising budgets towards mobile.

About Addictive Mobility

Addictive Mobility was founded in 2009 as a "mobile first" advertising technology platform. Addictive Mobility serves over 250 of the Fortune 500 brands including McDonald's, Pepsi, AT&T, and Time Warner. Addictive Mobility has its presence in Canada, United States and the Middle East.

"Over the last several months, we have been in discussion with various faculty members at the university's Department of Computer Science. Professor Eugene Fiume and Professor Peter Marbach share our passion for combining academia with the private sector. Through partnerships such as this, we hope to emulate the success stories that have come out of Silicon Valley, where this type of collaboration is common," explained Naveed Ahmad, CEO of Addictive Mobility.

The University of Toronto's Department of Computer Science is ranked amongst the top worldwide with a diverse background of national and international students. Professor Eugene Fiume, Academic Director of the MScAC program explained, "The objective of the program's 8-month internship component is to allow our students an opportunity to demonstrate their past experience and new academic skills with some of the most innovative companies in Canada. What excited us about Addictive Mobility was their focus on machine learning within digital advertising. We believe this initiative will be a win-win for both our graduate students and Addictive Mobility."

Machine learning and data analytics are two key areas of focus for Addictive Mobility. Naveed concluded, "As competition grows in mobile advertising, creating a differentiation becomes increasingly important. We believe that with the addition of these young scientists to our team, we will bring a fresh perspective to our work, and continue to offer our clients the unparalleled best mobile advertising experience available today."

About Addictive Mobility

Addictive Mobility was founded in 2009 as a "mobile first" advertising technology platform. Addictive Mobility serves over 250 of the Fortune 500 brands including McDonald's, Pepsi, AT&T, and Time Warner. Addictive Mobility has its presence in Canada, United States and the Middle East.

"We felt it was the right time to hold this event. It aligns with our ongoing commitment to provide our partners with the tools to successfully position themselves in the mobile first world we now live in. We are very excited to have IAB participate with us as we both share a common goal to ensure that Canadian Brands and Advertisers continue to be on the cutting edge of Digital Advertising," explained Naveed Ahmad, CEO of Addictive Mobility.

The conference will consist of a number of different sessions and will include speakers and panelists from Comscore and eMarketer among others. One panel discussion will feature the challenges faced by agencies that are transitioning brands into today's mobile first world. This agency panel will be structured like a fireside chat with some of Canada's thought leaders in the mobile advertising such as Shane Cameron, Managing Director -OMD, and Peter Vaz, VP -MacLaren McCann and Raymond Reid - Managing Director - Neo@Ogilvy.

"When Addictive Mobility presented the idea for the Mobile First Strategy Forum, we immediately thought the timing was right. Mobile traffic has grown to over 20% of the inventory and we need to start the discussion that location is important. It means thinking about targeting, ad formats, creative and analytics. We are happy to partner with and support our member's initiatives as we address major issues in the market," explained Chris Williams President of IAB Canada.

About Addictive Mobility

Addictive Mobility was founded in 2009 as a "mobile first" advertising technology platform. Addictive Mobility serves over 250 of the Fortune 500 brands including McDonald's, Pepsi, AT&T, and Time Warner. Addictive Mobility has its presence in Canada, United States and the Middle East.