News & Views

Barb, the industry’s standard for understanding what people watch, today announced that it has appointed RSMB to build a new analytics system that will support full-cycle campaign planning and reporting on linear and VOD services.

The new system will be a web-based interface where Barb clients can access and export data from Barb’s pre-campaign planning and optimisation tool, Advanced Campaign Hub and post-campaign evaluation service, CFlight. Users will be able to run standalone and customised reports with advanced data-visualisation capabilities. It will also allow for the automated request of reports via API for ingestion into proprietary reporting tools.

Further upgrades to CFlight will be rolled out with the launch of the new analytics system. These will focus on extending the coverage of VOD services and enhancing the reporting, by enabling users to analyse performance by sales house and to assess VOD-only campaigns.

RSMB will be responsible for developing, maintaining and running the system, with the launch planned for January 2026. It will be designed to leverage the data-storage capabilities of the new Barb Data Hub.

Luca Vannini, Head of Campaign Audiences at Barb, said:

“The development of this ground-breaking system is in direct response to our clients, who overwhelmingly expressed their desire for a new, modern interface to access Advanced Campaign Hub and CFlight.

“As the architects of the underlying methodologies of both these systems, RSMB has an excellent understanding of our campaign planning and reporting requirements. Uniting methodology and development under one roof will streamline data-processing procedures and deliver efficiencies by halving implementation and testing lead times and accelerating time to market for future developments.”

Ross Wightman, Commercial Director, RSMB, added:

“This new interface represents a step-change in how the industry plans and evaluates video advertising, bringing together the powerful methodologies of Advanced Campaign Hub and CFlight into a single, user-friendly system.

“We are excited to be developing a solution that will streamline data access and reporting whilst also empowering planners and buyers with advanced insights into the incremental value of VOD. This will be a modern and game-changing tool that will set new standards for cross-platform campaign planning and analysis.”

The new system has the working name of Total Campaign Reporting Suite.

CFlight is the world’s only joint-industry total TV campaign reporting service. It uses trusted data sources, audited to high quality standards, to provide post-campaign reporting on campaigns running across linear and VOD services. Originally launched in 2022, Barb assumed governance responsibility for CFlight in January 2024 and upgraded it to report on 11 major target audiences, giving full investment accountability across linear and VOD.

CFlight is complementary to Advanced Campaign Hub. First launched in June 2020, Advanced Campaign Hub combines Barb panel data and first-party data with census-level impressions supplied by participating VOD services. This enables users to forecast the unduplicated reach and frequency delivered by campaigns on linear and VOD services over multiple screens. Barb added Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and discovery+ to Advanced Campaign Hub last year.

Analysis will continue to be available via the existing Advanced Campaign Hub and CFlight interfaces until the new system is live.