• by Tony Jarvis , Op-Ed Contributor, April 1, 2026

The Advertising Research Foundation's CIMM East Conference in New York City Tuesday began where last year's left off: on an advertising “currency fiesta,” per Fox Senior Vice President-Research & Data, Ad Sales' Kym Frank, who famously made that quip in 2025.

"Currency siesta" fellow panelist Nicolas Grand, executive director of research and investment analytics at WPP Media, offered an alternative characterization of the multi-currency marketplace, adding, "I think the fundamental question is whether advertisers and agencies are ready to move off to alternative currencies this year more than last year. And I don't see -- at the moment -- the same appetite that we saw from some networks to move off of Nielsen. So I would say quiet evolution."

However, this is surely not the case based on recent headlines regarding Nielsen, the Media Rating Council and Video Advertising Bureau on MediaPost?

Once again, CIMM (Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement) delivered leading-edge speakers, presentations and studies that addressed the entire waterfront of complexities, diverse issues and opportunities facing advertisers, their agencies and the media, digital and linear, plus the media research vendors. And all now in a generative and agentic AI world.  

Ultimately, all the discussions focused on campaigns and advertising and media effectiveness, specifically, from the advertiser perspective.  

From a just-released CIMM study of advertisers' perspectives on media measurement, metrics and data collaboration, “Paradox of Plenty,” advertisers have identified five key concerns: “governance, transparency, innovation guardrails, and interoperability and competing data truths.”  

As echoed by Trevor Hamilton, managing director-publisher & platform solutions at Kochava, advertisers understand the current data riches, but clearly have poor confidence in causal impacts due primarily to the lack of data connectivity and harmonization across a myriad of sources.  

He suggested that Meta’s and Google’s focus and ability to provide outcomes-based optimization models was the key to the brand marketing's executive suite, including CFOs, and drives their ~60 cents on every ad dollar invested. However, he also stressed that integration of even seemingly disparate data sets is advancing rapidly, which will provide “other platforms and media” highly comparable and competitive information.   

On the same panel, Sarah Mansfield, formerly global vice president at Unilever, stressed the fundamental importance of universal research and data standards and transparency to overcome unconnected, non-transparent incompatible data sets. She suggested that this industry framework will ultimately produce comprehensive quality metrics to reduce the vast marketing “anxieties”.  

Based on an extensive media measurement perspective in Europe, Goode Measure Founder Paul Goode offered insights on TV measurement and currency in the U.S. from a contractual, cultural and standards and audits basis. I interpreted his review as a solid argument for a genuine JIC (joint industry committee) here in the U.S., the kind that operates across countries and media throughout Europe.  

He reminded the audience that there is a significant cost dynamic to the level of pragmatic data quality collectively agreed by any market group needed to generate “trust." JICs ultimately hold the contractual authority to formally ensure that enforceable quality is delivered to the industry.  

Later, joined by Matt Green, director of global media & measurement at the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), they addressed the in-progress review of “Lessons in Cross Media Measurement” primarily from a European perspective.  It is being prepared for WFA by CIMM and should be released in the summer.  

CMM anywhere faces significant complex but fundamental issues. Ultimately, any industry solution will face two fundamental challenges -- affordability and measurement methodology.  

This study hopes to reveal critical non-partisan CMM cornerstones: the current approaches and initiatives; roadmaps on accountability; conditions required for widespread media participation and potential challenges; the governance and funding model that could sustain existence; and what would a “good” (if imperfect, there is no “truth’) solution look like, e.g. fit for purpose.  

Expect a full report and update from WFA at the CIMM Summit in NYC in September.