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Ratified — the channel stack
STATUS: RATIFIED (10 August 2026). Joe reviewed this page ("all looks good and tracks"), then accepted all fifteen quality-check items — the eleven missing channels are now IN the vocabulary below and the four contradictions are fixed in place — and confirmed the platform-to-entity link as written in the worked example. The one loose thread: whether the named-service level is called "platform" or "platform service" — a naming detail the PIPE migration settles. Sources: the BRANDTRACKERS 3.0 Taxonomy Hub workbook (its tables read live through the docs connection on 10 August 2026, not from memory) and the two lists in the live database, both probed the same day.
The levels
One word was carrying five different questions. The stack gives each its own level:
| Level | The question it answers | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Media type | What kind of medium is this, at the top? | digital · broadcast · print · streaming & OTT · outdoor · retail · physical products & experiences · digital products & experiences |
| Channel | Which lane within that medium? | social media · email · company website · network television · billboards · in-store displays |
| Platform | Which named service? | the specific social, video or email service a piece ran on |
| Touchpoint | Where on that platform or place does a person meet it? | in-feed · profile page · inbox · search results · a highway · a store shelf |
| Ad format & placement | If it's bought media, what unit and where in the experience? | carousel ad · pre-roll · bumper · masthead · in-app placement |
The test sentences that drove the ruling now parse cleanly: "Gen Z consumers on TikTok, in-feed" = social media (channel) → that platform → in-feed (touchpoint). "Nike retail" = retail (media type) → in-store displays (channel) → a store's own touchpoints. "Email newsletter" = digital (media type) → email (channel) → inbox (touchpoint) — and "newsletter" itself is a content type, which is exactly why the old single word kept failing.
The starting vocabulary (from the workbook, verified)
The workbook's top level holds eight media types, each with its channels — read live from its tables:
- Digital — social media · email · company website · paid search · display & programmatic · online video · mobile apps & app stores · messaging (SMS, chat apps, push) · creator & influencer · affiliate (the seven bold lanes were added at the 10 August acceptance — most were missing from the source workbook itself)
- Broadcast — network, cable, satellite, terrestrial and public television · pay-per-view · AM/FM, satellite, digital and internet radio · cinema (pre-film advertising)
- Print — newspapers · magazines · academic and trade journals · direct mail · corporate communications · booklets & brochures · directories & catalogs · books · promotional materials · packaging · stationery · educational materials (this list once held "newsletters" and "point-of-sale materials" — a newsletter is a content TYPE whose channel is email or direct mail, and point-of-sale now has one home, under Retail)
- Streaming & OTT — subscription, ad-based, premium and hybrid video on demand · live streaming · streaming audio · podcasts · connected TV · interactive & multi-view · virtual events (the genre words the workbook mixed in here — sports, live TV, news, kids & family, educational, enterprise, fitness, niche — are not lanes; they belong to the content-type and audience axes and were removed at the acceptance)
- Outdoor — billboards · transit · street furniture · digital out-of-home · alternative outdoor · event & venue · public space · natural environment · interactive · sensory · eco-friendly · vehicle-based · temporary & pop-up · water-based (retail-adjacent outdoor folded into Retail's single point-of-sale home)
- Retail — in-store displays · point-of-sale (the ONE home for it — the tie-break: if it sells at the shelf, it lives here, whatever material it's printed on or mounted outside) · in-store digital signage · online retail advertising · retail media networks & marketplaces · mobile retail marketing · loyalty program marketing
- Physical products & experiences — pop-up stores · brand experience centers · product sampling · interactive installations · brand festivals & events · guerrilla activations · branded entertainment venues · trade show exhibits · in-store activations · VR & AR activations · sponsorship activations · sponsorship rights (kit, venue naming, tournament — the deal itself, not just the activation)
- Digital products & experiences — VR platforms · AR applications · mixed reality · interactive signage · voice platforms · gesture interfaces · holographic displays · projection mapping · AI chatbots · connected devices · wearables · gaming & esports (in-game placements, gaming activations) · and the emerging rest
Below these, the workbook already carries platform lists per channel, per-platform ad formats, touchpoints, and device types — the inventory to reconcile, not to rebuild.
How today's two live lists map in
The derived list (filled on nearly every piece — probed 10 August 2026: website 4,749 · social 3,596 · paid_ad 2,924 · video 1,228 · blog 892 · newsroom 537; re-probe before reuse, collection moves these) is really collection source, and it maps rather than survives: website, blog and newsroom become touchpoints of the company-website channel; social becomes the social-media channel with the platform recorded beside it; video becomes the platform it was collected from; paid_ad is not a place at all — it marks bought media, which belongs with ad format and placement.
The registered list (written on nothing: broadcast · digital · experiential · interactive · outdoor · print · retail · social · streaming · video_platform) turns out to be a rough sketch of the media-type level — it retires in favor of the workbook's eight.
When the platform is also the brand (Joe's worked example, 10 August 2026)
A video platform is two different things at once, and the stack keeps them apart. Take the real case: the company behind the biggest video platform advertises its own Creator Tools product, as a paid pre-roll ad on its own platform, and we capture it from an ads-library scrape. That one piece classifies cleanly because every fact has its own home:
- Who made it — the advertiser is an entity, like any tracked company. The platform's owner is just a company that happens to run a platform.
- What it belongs to — a Product Campaign (or Feature Campaign) for Creator Tools: a campaign grouping, with its campaign type recorded there.
- Where it ran — media type digital → channel social/video → platform = the same service, as a PLACE → placement pre-roll.
- How we got it — the ads-library scrape is the collection source, its own fact.
The schema answer: one company, two roles, two tables, one link. Platform values in the channel stack carry a link to the entity row whenever the platform's company is tracked — so "ran on the platform" and "made by the platform's company" never collide, and you can ask both "everything that ran there" and "everything they made" without the words fighting.
Still open (implementation details, not vocabulary)
- Exact naming at the named-service level ("platform" vs "platform service"), and whether device type earns a level of its own or stays metadata — settled by the PIPE migration.
- Which stack levels are derived at collection time versus classified.
- Research into how media companies name these levels stays authorized (Joe, 10 August 2026) and can inform the migration — scope and cost proposed before spending.
Quality check — ACCEPTED AND APPLIED (Joe, 10 August 2026: "accept all 15")
A completeness sweep found eleven missing lanes and four contradictions after the in-principle ratification. Joe accepted all fifteen, and they are now folded into the vocabulary above: paid search, display & programmatic, online video, mobile apps, messaging, creator & influencer and affiliate joined Digital · cinema joined Broadcast · podcasts joined Streaming & OTT · retail media networks joined Retail · sponsorship rights joined Physical experiences · gaming & esports joined Digital experiences. The four fixes: newsletters left the Print channel list (a newsletter is a content type; its channel is email or direct mail) · the experience media types have one canonical spelling ("physical products & experiences" / "digital products & experiences") · the genre words left the Streaming channel list for the content-type and audience axes · point-of-sale has exactly one home, under Retail, with the tie-break stated there.
What ruling this unlocks
Ratifying the stack triggers the pipeline-lane build work: the stack columns, mapping the derived values in, retiring the dead registered list, and giving offline pieces (ruled in scope) a home the moment collection for them exists.