The aim of the initiative is to establish a data platform that uses direct publisher integrations rather than measurement based on cookies, according to Kantar. The firm also said it wants to offer independent effectiveness measurement of individual publishers and media companies, including ‘walled garden’ environments.

Kantar has partnered with Google, Pandora and in-game advertising platform Anzu to directly link their data and assess the impact of ads on brand and sales as part of the initiative.

Google announced at the beginning of this year that it would begin phasing out third-party cookies in its web browser in the next two years, prompting the advertising industry to develop new ways of assessing effectiveness.

Kantar has also made a number of ‘cookie-less’ measurement partnerships, including Spotify, Twitter and Roku, and is aiming to integrate 250 publishers, which it said would represent 95% of digital ad spend globally, into the platform by the end of 2021.

The Project Moonshot initiative includes two methodologies for measurement and tracking, both based on Kantar’s Profiles Network of respondents, formed last year by bringing together the company’s global panels and sample offer.

Jane Ostler, Kantar’s global leader for advertising effectiveness, said: "The gradual removal of third-party cookies from the digital landscape means that methods of online ad effectiveness tracking need to evolve, in a privacy-compliant way. We know that advertisers would ideally like cross-publisher ad effectiveness measurement, and Kantar’s Project Moonshot is making giant steps in that direction."

Ostler added that the project will create the "infrastructure" for advertising teams to prove the value of their spend as businesses move towards the recovery phase of the Covid-19 pandemic.