LONDON/NEW YORK: Marketers are set to benefit from several cross-platform developments as media owners tackle issues surrounding delivery and measurement.

AOL has announced a move to simplify the increasingly complex world of advertising technology, bringing together its various tools on a single platform called One, where marketers will be able to buy ads across television, web, mobile and social media.

The man leading this change, Bob Lord, CEO of AOL Platforms, explained to Advertising Age that there was an advertising "tech tax" of anywhere between 55 and 75 cents of every dollar spent, but said One could cut that to 25 cents through consolidation and efficiency.

Matt Seiler, global chief executive of Interpublic's Mediabrands advertising group, likened the development to the introduction of the computer system widely used in financial firms.

"There isn't somebody like a Bloomberg terminal in our industry that is on everybody's desk and is the means by which advertising trades get handled," he told the Financial Times. "That is what AOL will be able to provide."

Meanwhile, News UK is aiming for nothing less than the creation of a universal ad effectiveness metric. Earlier this week the newspaper publisher indicated it was planning to partner with another media owner to commission a major research study to this end.

"A lot of the research to date in this area has been quite case study based, which is relevant for that brand in that situation but not necessarily to other advertisers," Sean Adams, News UK head of commercial insight, told Marketing Week.

He said that, following the research, a trial programme would test the new metric, likely to be based on outcomes rather than input, across sectors and gauge marketers' reaction.

Paul Hayes, managing director of News UK Commercial, added: "Ten years ago we would have just said we are high reach and have an audience of scale, but nowadays lots of people can say that. That's why we need to start talking about outcomes and greater ROI.

"It's incumbent on media owners to talk about why they and their audiences are distinct."

Data sourced from Advertising Age, Financial Times, Marketing Week; additional content by Warc staff