Scandal in the online market: Gemius rejects all accusations

The company Gemius has issued a denial regarding recent reports published on TV1's Dnevnik and the vijesti.ba portal, which "included inappropriate attacks on the company Gemius and the gemiusAudience research", writes the Patria News Agency.  

-We believe that creating non-existent "scandals" for hidden business interests and promoting unfair and inappropriate attacks on the recognized standard for internet measurement harms the online advertising industry the most, meaning all online portals and media, Gemius stated.

We are publishing the denial in its entirety:

-We consider the recent reports on TV1's Dnevnik and vijesti.ba, which were also carried by certain Bosnian online portals, to be inappropriate attacks on the company Gemius, which has been conducting the GemiusAudience research in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the seventh year.

Gemius conducts this research in more than twenty countries in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Given that TV1 has a co-ownership relationship with the vijesti.ba portal, which is also corporately linked or in strategic relations with several other online publishers, some of whom participate in the GemiusAudience research, we believe this is pressure on the research by online media dissatisfied with their results.

Measurement data reflects the quality or lack thereof of the media itself, not the research provider. Gemius measures the results, while the online publishers are solely responsible for them.

In today's marketing world, television is gradually losing budgets due to the extensive use of the internet and the rapid development of advertising on this medium. For this reason, TV1 is attempting to suggest that the GemiusAudience research is not authoritative, despite being recognized as a standard by publishers and agencies.

The fact is that the sample of respondents for socio-demographic surveys conducted online is many times larger than the number of "peoplemeters" for TV measurement. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there is no generally recognized standard for television, unlike GemiusAudience for the internet.

The gemiusExplorer tool, which displays the complete results of the GemiusAudience research, includes all essential online metrics such as time spent on the site, number of page views, number of unique visitors per month, user socio-demographics, user preferences, target group duplication, and about thirty others.

GemiusExplorer is the only tool in Bosnia and Herzegovina that allows agencies and advertisers to precisely plan online media based on visitor quality.

In some markets where there is an authoritative professional association of online publishers and agencies, such as the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau), Gemius operates in agreement and with the approval of the association. When the IAB or a similar authoritative association does not exist in a market because the industry has failed to agree on common rules and standards, Gemius conducts research according to its business principles and in compliance with all international norms and the relevant laws of the respective country.

Statements by certain self-proclaimed experts that "cookies have been an outdated thing for years" are merely proof of the ignorance of these alleged "experts". Google, Facebook, Twitter, and all the largest global companies involved in online advertising generate their revenue precisely because of cookie technology. Cookie technology enables the measurement of "viewable impressions", which, according to the global IAB, is the most important metric in online advertising today. It defines whether a particular part of the page where an online ad (banner) is located was actually seen by the user or not. Gemius, as part of its research on the effectiveness of online campaigns, gemiusDirectEffect, is the only one in Bosnia and Herzegovina offering advertisers and agencies "viewable impression" data.

In conclusion, we believe that the formation of a professional association is key to the advancement of the online advertising industry in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Only a joint approach by the industry and adherence to equal standards of conduct can contribute to market development. Creating non-existent "scandals" for hidden business interests and promoting unfair and inappropriate attacks on the recognized standard for internet measurement harms the online advertising industry the most, meaning all online portals and media.