Nearly 150 industry colleagues and guests joined the CRE in person or by phone for the October 23 event to address the intriguing and much-discussed topic of Big Data and its growing role in the audience measurement conversation.

At the event, the CRE rolled out its Big Data Primer and hosted discussions of the latest views on the expanding relationship between data science and audience research.

Guest speakers and panelists, representing a cross section of organizations in the fields of advertising, marketing, data analytics, research, and television, included Cognitive Box's Shaun Doyle, JubaPlus's Yoram Greener, Media Rating Council's George Ivie, Neustar's Ken Barbieri, Simulmedia's Mainak Mazumdar, Turner Broadcasting's Howard Shimmel, and—addressing the topic from a CMO's perspective—former CRE chair Mark Kaline. Joining the speaking lineup from Nielsen were SVP, Data Integration Pete Doe and Managing Director, Digital Andrew Feigenson, with Chief Research Officer Paul Donato making an unscheduled but welcome cameo appearance to respond to the conversation.

Speakers and panelists presented and discussed industry case studies and approaches to the incorporation of Big Data from various industry perspectives.

Some common themes emerged—among them, the potential for dramatic growth in the data science field, the importance of understanding the fundamental limitations of data, and the imperative of asking a great many questions about the data being used.

Said Stacey Schulman, Executive Vice President, Strategy, Analytics and Research, Katz Media Group, who chairs the CRE's Big Data Committee, "The CRE's Big Data event was meant to be both illustrative and illuminating, helping Nielsen clients to understand how our industry is ramping up to incorporate Big Data strategies into everyday business and identifying areas in which market research practitioners are still a very important part of the solution set."

Also during the session, CRE Facilitator Richard Zackon discussed for the first time the initial phase of a CRE initiative to study a potential new application of data and machine learning in audience measurement. This initiative, which is expected to unfold over the next two months, will be designed in part to address problems identified by previous CRE studies in local-market measurement and sample quality.

A copy of the Big Data Primer can be found here.

The CRE's October 23 Big Data event and the CRE's Big Data Primer were the products of a months-long effort by a team headed by Stacey Schulman, Executive Vice President, Strategy, Analytics and Research, Katz Media Group, who chairs the CRE's Big Data Committee.

In a Q&A; with the CRE Newsletter, Stacey offered some of her own views on the very hot topic of Big Data.

Q: Why did you help form a Big Data Committee for the CRE?

We formed the Big Data Committee two years ago based on what we observed as a crisis developing in the C-Suite. As more and more data were becoming available through a variety of analytic sources, businesses began hiring data scientists to manage the data sets without addressing the quality or representativeness of the very source material. This created conflict within organizations between market research and analytics, both advisors to the C-Suite.

Our Big Data Committee was formed to provide a bridge between data scientists and market researchers, to find ways to educate and inform both groups, and to explore projects that could accelerate cooperation between the two disciplines.

Q: "Big Data," depending on the context, seems to carry so many definitions. How do you define Big Data, in the context of audience research and measurement?

Probably the first several months of our Big Data Committee meetings were all about arriving at a common understanding of what Big Data "is." Truthfully, the definition continues to change, but I believe that our Big Data Primer does this quite eloquently for this moment in time.

We started with technology research firm Gartner Group's definition of "Volume, Velocity and Variety" and put it into the context of the media and marketing industries, specifically to arrive at a definition of what can be termed Big Data for the Marketing and Advertising industry (BDMA).

Within my own discipline of audience research and measurement, I believe "Big Data" means opportunity. The sandbox just got bigger and the play toys more sophisticated. Whether you call yourself a "market researcher" or a "data scientist," your goal is similar—find a piece of insight that will move your business forward.

Q: What did you hope to accomplish with this Big Data conference?

There are many industry opportunities to be exposed to Big Data conversations these days, but they are often focused at 50,000 feet and highlight business results over the journey. We wanted to have a conversation specifically about the journey. How are we getting there as an industry, who is experimenting, and what are we learning?

You would be hard-pressed today to talk to an organization that isn't trying to embrace "Big Data" in some way. What they all have in common is that they are struggling with how to organize, harness, and attract the right resources to be set up for success. And, most importantly, once they're structured properly, how do they know that the answers they unearth are valid and representative for the business problem they are solving?

Our hope is that this conference has helped provoke CRE members to actively engage in their organizations' Big Data endeavors, giving them a starting place to question approaches with greater confidence and inspiring them to collaborate and experiment with new techniques.

Q: How might you measure the success of the Big Data Committee's efforts, and over what period of time?

We will feel successful if we are able to engage the industry in keeping our Big Data Primer "evergreen," for example.

Moving forward, we would like to believe that, through our efforts, the industry will shift its conversation from "What is Big Data?" to "Where is Big Data best used to help my business—and where is it not?" We only get there by exploring both the opportunities and pitfalls of these capabilities.

The CRE's Big Data Committee has thus far been creating events and projects that provide education to our members on the topic, but you will see us shift in the coming year to commissioning projects that begin to explore the nuances of analytic approaches. I would love to see us become an industry resource for how and why certain analytic approaches are employed.

Attendees at the November 12–13 ARF West conference in San Francisco will learn initial insights from the CRE's ongoing project to develop a white paper on cross-platform metrics.

The effort, overseen by the Media Consumption & Engagement (MC&E;) Committee, is scheduled for year-end completion of the white paper, titled Research Agenda for the Alignment of Cross-Platform Media Measurement.

At an ARF session entitled "Making the Impossible Possible: Meeting the Cross-Platform Challenge," Joe Abruzzo, MC&E; Committee chair and EVP, Chief Exploration Officer, Havas Media, will inform attendees of findings of the completed series of field interviews with 50 leading media, advertising, and research executives and experts, conducted for the CRE by Horowitz Associates and Betsy Frank Insights.

"Our objective of the interviews was to understand the issues considered most important to audience measurement across media platforms," Abruzzo said.

The 50 top-level sales and research executives represented TV and radio broadcasters and networks, advertising and media agencies, advertisers, research companies, digital media publishers and technology providers, multichannel video programming distributors, and industry organizations and associations, among others.

Further updates will be provided in subsequent editions of this newsletter.

Following an August 2014 presentation--drawing nearly 200 industry colleagues and guests--of initial findings from its two ethnographic studies designed to help Nielsen and their clients better understand video viewing behaviors, the CRE is moving ahead with the second year of ethnographic research.

Digital Research Committee chair Bryon Schafer recently discussed the initial studies with GfK at The Market Research Event (TMRE) on October 21 in Boca Raton and is scheduled to speak at the February 2015 Media Insights & Engagement conference in San Diego.

In the meantime, a slide presentation of the qualitative findings announced on August 6 can be found here.

Research associate Sequent Partners has completed the literature search portion and is well underway on conducting interviews for the follow-up study into marketing mix modeling. The project was launched this summer by the CRE's ROI Committee, chaired by David Poltrack. The project advances toward a fourth-quarter white paper.

The CRE's 2013 and 2014 "Talking Social TV" and "Talking Social TV 2" studies, conducted with research associate Keller Fay Group and fielded by Nielsen Life360, continue to garner positive industry reaction, reports Beth Rockwood, Senior Vice President, Market Resources and Advertising Sales Research, Discovery Communications, and chair of the CRE's Social Media Committee.

The academic review of the findings of the most recent study, "Talking Social TV 2," is proceeding toward fall completion and promises to offer further insights to the effectiveness of mobile journaling of media habits and behavior.

Stacey, Howard and Susie were CRE members when with previous employers.

At the CRE's quarterly meeting in March, the Council welcomed as a member John McMorrow, Senior Vice President, Programming & Research, at Cox Television's HRP subsidiary.

Longtime CRE member Jack Wakshlag stepped down at the end of March from his position as Chief Research Officer at Turner Broadcasting. During his 12-year term in that role, he has been credited with innovations such as establishing Turner as the first TV organization to begin coding its programming to measure the impact of over-the-top video consumption on commercial viewing; digital ad load testing that persuaded Turner to place content online with full ad loads; CNN All Screen; Advanced Media Targeting; a highly regarded promo testing data base; and successful program/movie estimating processes, among other achievements. We know readers join us in congratulating Jack on this recently concluded phase of his distinguished career and in wishing him the best on his next endeavors.

The CRE has begun a committee for the study of the effects of commercial pod length. The committee, chaired by Hadassa Gerber, Director of Research for the Syndicated Network Television Association (SNTA), expects to begin its inaugural research effort in 2014.

We're pleased to welcome back Judy Vogel, Vice President of Research at Gannett Company, Inc.; Michael Nathanson, Senior Research Analyst at MoffettNathanson, LLC; and Bryon Schafer, Senior Vice President of Research at Warner Bros. Television. All three were prior CRE members while with other companies, and were re-admitted at the CRE's December quarterly meeting.

The Steering Committee of the CRE voted to approve the establishment of a $30,000 scholarship in the name of Susan Whiting, at her alma mater Denison University. Susan, who will be retiring from her position as vice chair at Nielsen at year-end, was instrumental in the creation of the CRE in 2005.

The CRE welcomes its newest members: