The big broadcast nets are beginning to book their first big upfront deals — deals that are showing signs of today’s complex media world. Technology innovation continues to drive media fragmentation, muddying the once-simple world of TV, radio and print. Advertisers must now divide their budgets among all the proliferating devices and channels people watch. How can they hope to get the return they are used to in terms of what people buy? And how can the broadcast nets and other media companies offer such a return?

Certainly, this revolution in technology is complicating our lives. But we believe this same technological revolution is going to make it possible for advertising to enjoy a renaissance of sorts.

Why? Technology innovation will make it possible to trim a great deal of waste out of advertising by making it more precise. As advertising becomes more precise, it will become more efficient, which will drive up its ROI. This higher ROI will then lead to more investment in advertising. Yes, spending more, which many are reluctant to do, will become the attractive option, the smart business move.

The secret is not just “big” data, but “right” data. Here’s how we see it play out.

What we call “enterprise marketing platforms” will take in data on the viewing and purchase behavior of millions. They will feed it into software that combines elements of marketing models, attribution models and other analytical tools. And the result will be predictions that relate watching to buying more precisely than ever before.

These models will then inform systems that systematically and “programmatically” bid for and buy advertising, and monitor the buying activity that results. These results will be fed back into the predictive models in real time. The models get better with each cycle. The waste goes out. The ROI goes up. And the money comes in.

Are we there yet? Nobody’s quite there yet. If enterprise marketing platforms are to do all these things successfully, we will need the right technology, the right analytics and the right data. Today, the technology is approaching commodity status. The analytics are difficult but doable. The real challenge is the data.

Consumer privacy and security must remain paramount. As we and others gather more person-level data, it is crucial that we preserve the anonymity of the data without losing its specificity. Despite what others have said, privacy and precision are not a zero-sum game, but achieving both requires enormous care.

And identity-management challenges mean that not all data is accurate enough. That ad that was seen on a smartphone and a tablet: Was it seen once by two people or twice by one person? In addition, some offline data is not as granular as it could be. Some data is not available quickly enough. And big data is typically both noisy and unrepresentative.

This is because big data generally accumulates, rather than being something constructed. Making it useful requires calibration with data that is both clean and representative. For this purpose, we leverage large, carefully assembled, carefully curated panels that function as a source of truth. The panels are like the philosopher’s stone that alchemists once dreamt of: Panels allow us to turn the ore of accumulated data into the gold of calibrated, insightful datasets.

This kind of calibration will become more and more important, because what we call big data today will not always be big enough. We are entering a world where no company will have enough data on its own to do what can now be done. Gathering truly comprehensive data will involve negotiating with multiple owners who will share their data only with those they trust to keep it safe and use it impartially. Independent data, always an important element when financial decisions are on the line, will be more vital than ever.

What we are seeing, then, is the emergence of a real-time meld of data, technology and analytics that relates the media exposure of all consumers on any device to the purchase activity of all consumers in any channel. The result will allow manufacturers to identify, with extraordinary precision, what mix of advertising will most contribute to their brands’ growth prospects.

The crucial enabler of that precision will be data. The right data, in the right form, handled in the right manner. This is what will drive the coming advertising renaissance.

Is it any wonder data is cool once again?

Mitch Barns is chief executive officer of Nielsen, and will kick off the company’s annual Consumer 360 Conference tomorrow. Reach him @mitchbarns.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

When asked about the future recently, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said, “Television will change more in the next five years than in the last 50.” We agree.

Based on 70 years of watching what consumers experience, and how they buy, how they act and what they do based on their consumption of content, we see a seismic shift coming in the next five years. Nowhere is this more acute than when it comes to television and video consumption.

In fact, we see five significant and interrelated trends emerging that will shape the media business in the immediate future and beyond.

First, distribution channels will continue to merge. Devices define our media diet — be it TV, computers, mobile, or/and whatever comes next. Today, while much of the video consumed is still on traditional television, those figures migrate daily. These shifts mean that “TV” as shorthand for video content doesn’t work anymore. Ultimately, the marketplace will be device-neutral, and will follow “video.”

Some frame this in a “TV is dead” metaphor. This couldn’t be further from the truth. We access more content now than ever before: The average American consumes nearly 60 hours of content each week across different screens, including computers, mobile devices and TV sets. Viewed through the content lens, “TV” is being viewed more often, for longer, and across more occasions, platforms and devices.

Second, the advertising solution will no longer be just about demographics. Increasingly, information about consumers’ behaviors and geographic location will enhance today’s method of ferreting out customers using only age and gender as a proxy. Today, most of the digital marketplace works this way, but over time, more of the media landscape will join them. As they’ve indicated, companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable have an opportunity to push forward the addressability of video advertising. Ultimately, any brand will be able to move beyond the current proxy system to get to their precise audience on any platform.

Third, as viewers continue to move more fluidly across distribution channels, so, too, will advertising dollars. In today’s U.S. media market, those dollars total near the hundred-billion mark. As those viewers move, chief marketing officers will want to follow them in real time. For the marketplace to truly evolve into a real-time world, it will need to accurately encompass the cross-platform space so that marketers are no longer working in silos. They will need to get confirmation from a trusted independent source that their real-time dollars paid for the intended viewers, not fraudulent bot traffic or off-target audiences.

Fourth, many companies (media and otherwise) will use their own rich data to help determine who their specific consumer is. Right now, Big Data is too often a description of a problem, and not a solution. The solution will be found by marrying each company’s own data set to other, more representative information. The harnessing of this disparate data to produce simple, actionable insights will result in better decisions. Companies can use their assets — consumer relationships, ad sales relationship, and consumer insights — to build and leverage partnerships that open the door to finding their perfect consumer. Joining and unlocking this type of information is a formidable task, requiring rigorous measurement science to do it well.

Fifth, independent measurement will matter more than ever before. Globally, we see that when a market aligns around a common metric, one that is independent and trusted by all sides, the industry grows quicker and healthier. Delivering a complete and accurate view of the consumer, across all devices and distribution channels, requires the best measurement science available. While there are many planning and custom solutions out there, history shows that markets prefer to trade on a single, common, trusted measurement. That measurement requires the highest level of efficacy, confidence and transparency as it drives decisions related to millions, if not billions, of dollars of marketplace trade.

Consumer preferences over the devices and platforms used to access content will continue to change — and likely quickly. Adapting to these changes comes with growing pains, marketplace feedback and, hopefully, a bit of self-reflection to understand what needs to be reimagined. For the foreseeable future, we need to rethink the way we define TV. It needs to extend beyond a myopic view of the standard living room and big-screen experience to the myriad ways that video content is today consumed. We need proven and complete methodologies that follow representative and responsible measurement practices. Ultimately, the marketplace will demand a rigorous, independent measurement before it’s willing to trade billions of dollars.

Mitch Barns is CEO of Nielsen. Reach him @Nielsen.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.