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  • #Retrace2021: Inching towards a connected future of audience measurement

    #Retrace2021: Inching towards a connected future of audience measurement

    Mumbai: It was for the first time since the 1960s, that Nielsen’s measurement lost a “seal of approval” from the industry that uses it, as leading advertisers and TV networks sought alternate means of counting their audiences. The TV measurement company had long faced criticism from the Video Advertising Bureau (trade organisation representing the advertising sales departments of networks and distributors) over undercounting the TV viewing during the pandemic, and the exclusion of broadband-only homes. The months-long feud culminated in the suspension of accreditation of Nielsen’s national and local TV ratings service by the Media Ratings Council, effective mid-September 2021.

    Also read: Nielsen loses accreditation for TV measurement service

    Matters were further compounded by NBCUniversal launching a measurement RFP in August, calling for “measurement independence”. In September, even as Nielsen CEO David Kenny acknowledged the gap and bias in measurement as a result of the exclusion of broadband-only homes representing nearly 30 per cent of TV households in some local markets, ViacomCBS announced its partnership with software and data platform, VideoAmp for TV measurement data. The move opened the way for other networks to explore alternative means of counting their audiences.

    Also read: ViacomCBS teams up with VideoAmp for TV Measurement after Nielsen loses accreditation

    At the centre of this growing dissatisfaction with the panel-based measurement system was the Connected-TV revolution and the under as well as misrepresentation of the large universe of the audience that has either completely cut the cord or is consuming both linear and CTV across devices and platforms. The industry was clamouring for a unified identifier that could bring about fundamental changes in the current measurement system which oversimplifies viewing across CTV by extending linear TV measurement standards to it and/or combining two viewing data sets that do not have common metrics.

    Hopes were now pinned on Nielsen ONE, Nielsen’s single cross-media product providing reach and frequency metrics by delivering a holistic, deduplicated view of both content and ad performance regardless of screen, device or platform.

    Laying the groundwork for implementing the new flagship currency across local, national and digital measurement towards the end of September, Nielsen announced the “Impressions First Initiative” for impression-based buying and selling in local markets across the US, as well as the integration of Broadband-Only Homes into local measurement in January 2022. The impression-based currency will deliver a more complete, precise and representative audience measurement, along with the added benefit of enabling cross-platform audience measurement, it said. 

    Going full-throttle on its digital transformation, in October Nielsen unveiled a new brand campaign, including a new identity, reflecting the company’s focus on delivering digital-first and global-first media solutions in three areas—measurement, audience outcomes and content services. The shift signaled the combining and enhancing its measurement solutions into the single cross-media measurement solution, Nielsen One.

    Announcing the year’s biggest development and the culmination of a long wait, on 21 December 2021, Nielsen unveiled the first iteration of Nielsen ONE, ‘NielsenONE Alpha’ with Disney and MAGNA as participants. The newest deduplicated ad-measurement will continue to evolve with new feature additions, enhancements, and model improvements leading up to the launch of the final product in the fourth quarter of 2022.

    Aligning India with the global digital shift  

    While the connected TV/OTT ecosystem in India is not as well developed and deeply entrenched yet, it is relevant here to recall Barc India’s intent to initiate ‘one video view’ measurement, announced in September 2020 by ex CEO Sunil Lulla. At the height of the TRP scam that broke out around the same time, a section of the industry had expressed doubt regarding some stakeholders derailing the ratings agency’s efforts and intentions to bring forth a unified, cross-platform measurement system.

    Also read: Nielsen to launch new commercial metrics to track individual ads on TV

    The TRP committee formed in the aftermath of the scandal recommended measures to reinstate faith in the current rating system by strengthening corporate governance within Barc India at the board level through independent technical oversight, term limits, and wide representation that minimises conflicts of interest. The 39-page report also pushed for the formation of multiple rating agencies in competition to Barc India and creating a specialised regulator to oversee all of them.

    Even as it addressed the pitfalls in linear TV measurement, the four-member panel led by Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati laid down the framework for a comprehensive transformation and democratisation of the country’s rating systems and standards in line with the global shift towards digital.

    Considering the increasing convergence between STBs and smart media devices and the emergence of hybrid boxes capable of both CAS compliant linear TV viewing and internet streaming-based OTT viewing, the committee recommended a Return Path Data (RPD) mandate in all future STBs deployed by Distribution Platform Operators (DPOs). It also noted the emergence of smartphone-based apps capable of interacting with such hybrid boxes as paving the way for additional avenues for RPD data capture and relay.

    Further, it suggested the government/regulator examines incentives and policy interventions including FDI norms in the media audience measurement technology space so that India emerges as the hub for global innovation in this sector.

    Acknowledging the growth in digital advertising as well as the trend of linear TV viewing over interfaces other than traditional televisions and beyond the threshold of conventional households, the committee stressed the need for regulatory interventions to foster innovation while allowing for value chains to evolve, keeping pace with global trends and local market dynamics.

    “A hallmark of digital innovations over the past few decades has been disintermediation within value chains and disruption across industry domains, leveling the playing field and spurring competition. The world of linear television ought to be no exception to such disintermediation between buyers and sellers of media. There are no reasons why new models of advertising such as platform-based advertising, location-based advertising, programmatic advertising, etc must not emerge,” it said while adding that the guidelines prescribed must not privilege any one business model over another, nor create barriers to the emergence of more efficient business models.

    The above recommendations are both practicable and necessary considering the pace at which television viewing is evolving in India. As per mediasmart’s India CTV Report 2021, CTV viewing in India is on a significant uptick and increased by 31 per cent, compared to 81 per cent globally. Even though India is still a young market, it has tremendous potential for CTV adoption by consumers. In April 2020, 21 per cent of CTV viewing households were cord-cutters (households who cut the cord within the past five years), whereas 22 per cent were cord-nevers (households with no cable/satellite subscription in the past five years).

    Ormax Media research pins the Indian OTT audience universe at 353.2 million people, translating into a penetration of 25.3 per cent. According to various other estimates, the figure including YouTube is roughly 500 million. As regards CTV adoption, Madison’s Q2 report revealed that smart TV shipments grew by almost 65 per cent, claiming an 80 per cent share of the total TV shipments. Their massive adoption was fuelled by starting price points as low as Rs.15000.

    Given that TV as a medium still has considerable scope for growth in India, preparing for a connected future may seem like a long shot at this juncture. However, the Indian market which is often typecast as ‘underdeveloped’ is also a curious one where the digital revolution is being brought about by smartphones that have outmaneuvered PCs as the primary or base medium. With the current regulatory regime that seems to accelerate the clear segmentation of audience between Free Dish and streaming services by allegedly disincentivising Pay/Cable TV, we might be in for more surprises. 

  • Nielsen to launch new commercial metrics to track individual ads on TV

    Nielsen to launch new commercial metrics to track individual ads on TV

    Mumbai: Nielsen has announced that it will enhance its National television measurement by measuring viewing in a more precise manner, allowing for a future where audience estimates are based on individual ads rather than commercial minutes.

    The latest enhancement to Nielsen Individual Commercial Metrics will help pave the way for true comparability across the digital and linear platforms and comes following a series of tech, measurement and methodology advancements as Nielsen accelerates its efforts for delivery of Nielsen One, its cross-platform measurement solution, it said on Monday.

    With more precise commercial measurement, agencies, advertisers and brands will have the unprecedented ability to directly compare, plan and optimise ad campaign performance over both digital platforms and linear TV.

    The announcement comes three months after the company lost the industry approval for its national TV rating service after the board of the US-based Media Rating Council (MRC) suspended its accreditation. The suspension of the decades-old TV rating service followed a long standoff between Nielsen and the networks over the former’s services, including discrepancies in the data shared by the company during the pandemic.

    Nielsen said it has also expanded its relationship with Extreme Reach, the global leader in creative logistics, allowing for an efficient way of encoding the vast majority of all national linear TV commercials with Nielsen’s watermarks, which will launch in the first half of 2022.

    “We’re very pleased to collaborate with Nielsen on this important step in improving workflow efficiency for marketing teams, which has been at the core of our mission at Extreme Reach for over a decade. Nielsen’s ongoing efforts to embrace the morphing worlds of linear and digital TV now provide a means for marketers and their agencies to understand and value digital and linear TV commercials in a directly comparable way, which is a distinct improvement for the industry,” said  Extreme Reach COO Gaurav Agarwal.

    Nielsen’s new Individual Commercial Metrics reporting capability will enable the measurement of linear television at a “subminute” level and audience estimates at a level of granularity that is more comparable to digital. Providing comparability in this manner paves the way for Nielsen One to provide something long sought after as an industry imperative—true deduplication across platforms, it said.

    “Giving the industry true, trusted metrics that offer harmonisation across platforms is the bedrock to revolutionising the cross-media buying and selling process and a foundational step toward Nielsen ONE,” said Nielsen SVP Product Management Kim Gilberti. “By transforming our TV measurement and moving to Individual Commercial Metrics, both media buyers and sellers will be able to maximise the value of their inventory as well as capitalise and drive return on investment of their advertising spend across the rapidly converging traditional and digital landscapes.”

    As a first step in this plan, in early 2022 Nielsen will enhance its process for collecting and crediting watermarks, enabling the detection of watermarks more frequently within a given minute, allowing for credit of shorter duration events, such as individual ads. This change will give sellers the ability to utilise Nielsen’s reporting to properly value their commercial inventory—from pricing to placement.

    For the first time, Nielsen’s television measurement will also leverage Gracenote Content Signatures, which will allow for granular crediting for instances where there is no watermark present.

  • Neilsen announces ‘Impressions-First Initiative’ for cross-platform measurement

    Neilsen announces ‘Impressions-First Initiative’ for cross-platform measurement

    Mumbai: Nielsen has announced that it will take the lead on an ‘Impressions-First Initiative’ to support an industry-wide move to impressions-based buying and selling in local markets across the US. The move to impressions will occur in conjunction with the integration of broadband-only (BBO) homes into Nielsen’s local measurement metrics in January 2022, said the global market information & measurement company on Tuesday.

    According to a statement, migration to an impressions-based currency will deliver a more complete, precise and representative audience measurement, along with the added benefit of enabling cross-platform audience measurement.

    “In today’s fragmented media landscape, the shift to impressions lays the groundwork for implementing Nielsen One across local, national, and digital measurement. The inclusion of BBO homes will enable the industry to rapidly transition to trading on impressions. Impressions represent all viewers regardless of platform—which is especially important given the significant and growing penetration of BBO homes in local markets,” the company said.

    For more than two years, Nielsen has been working with the media and advertising industries in preparation for the inclusion of BBO homes in local TV measurement for its 56 LPM and set meter markets.

    “Nielsen is committed to measuring all audiences and the complete video consumption across the local marketplace,” said Nielsen CEO David Kenny. “Impressions are the great equaliser across all screens, programs, listeners and viewers. Nielsen’s move to prioritise reporting impressions will help standardise the way it measures ads and content, enabling greater comparability across national, local and digital and is in line with Nielsen’s initiative to drive comparable metrics which are foundational to Nielsen One.”

    Nielsen, which had previously announced a BBO implementation date of October 2021, made the final decision to begin implementation in January 2022 in response to industry requests. The TV measurement company had been facing criticism from the Video Advertising Bureau (trade organisation representing the advertising sales departments of networks and distributors) over the accuracy of its ratings, following which the Media Ratings Council (MRC) had suspended its accreditation for national and local TV ratings service in September.

    The new timing will enable the rating company to publish an official BBO UE that will be audited and reviewed by the MRC. In addition to delivering one month of impact data, a January implementation will include all BBO homes. Adding BBO homes will increase reporting sample sizes significantly and capture impressions that may be missing, especially for sports and OTT content.

    Concurrent with Nielsen’s support of an industry-wide move from ratings to impressions in January 2022, the company will default its local reporting settings to impressions in its software systems (Arianna, NLTV, eVip) and will lead with impressions in all of its external communications. Ratings will remain available to end-users for planning purposes. 

  • CTV behind the growing dissatisfaction with Nielsen’s audience measurement system

    CTV behind the growing dissatisfaction with Nielsen’s audience measurement system

    Mumbai: Nielsen is in the eye of the storm once again following the suspension of accreditation for National and Local TV Ratings service in the US by the Media Ratings Council, effective mid-September. The TV measurement company had long been facing criticism from the Video Advertising Bureau (the trade organisation representing the advertising sales departments of networks and distributors) over the accuracy of its ratings. The months-long feud culminated in the VAB formally petitioning MRC to strip Nielsen’s accreditation citing undercounting TV viewing during the pandemic, and the exclusion to-date of broadband-only homes as primary reasons.

    Submitting an in-depth 10-page document to the MRC, the VAB detailed the five specific violations of minimum standards committed by Nielsen starting March 2020. “Although Nielsen has taken steps to rectify the issues with its sample, our current analysis proves the issue persists.  With nearly 18 per cent of respondents still missing, the sample still does not accurately represent the TV viewing population, particularly diverse and younger homes,” it stated.

    While Nielsen cited Covid-related disruptions as an explanation for undercounting during the pandemic, the growing dissatisfaction with its panel-based measurement system stems from the more fundamental problem around both the underrepresentation as well as the misrepresentation of the large universe of the audience that has either completely cut the cord or is consuming both linear and CTV across devices and platforms. The numbers which were already on the rise witnessed unprecedented growth in the past 18-20 months in the US.

    According to database company, Statista’s research titled ‘Connected TV advertising in the US – statistics & facts’ published this June, the number of CTV users in the US reached an impressive 203 million in 2020. CTV ad spend at $13.41bn amounted to 4.7 per cent share in total ad spend, with the most common share of ad budget dedicated to CTV being 10-20 per cent. CTV ad household reach stood at 78 per cent. Stating targeting and efficiency as the top reasons, 42 per cent of advertisers were planning to increase spend on OTT/CTV.

    On 1 September, Nielsen CEO David Kenny had also, in a letter addressed to clients, said, “Broadband-only homes are an important audience now representing nearly 30 per cent of TV households in some local markets. We believe it is critical to include them in local measurement as soon as possible, but we agree that we need to move to an explicit universe estimate. Their exclusion to-date means a gap and bias in measurement and we have been and continue to commit to integrating them in a responsible way.”

    Last month, the firm had announced its intention to add Broadband-Only (BBO) homes to its panels in October, but that did not deter MRC from revoking Nielsen’s accreditation. The Council had expressed reservation about the effectiveness of the plan, given the need for fundamental changes in the current measurement system which oversimplifies viewing across CTV by extending linear TV measurement standards to it and/or combining two viewing data sets that do not have common metrics.

    For this very reason, the clamour for evolving a unified identifier has only grown since the groundbreaking innovation began redefining broadcast in the US close to a decade ago; however, the complexity and fragmentation of the ecosystem have kept the industry from arriving at it so far.

    The pandemic and other recent developments seem to have put the exercise on fast forward.

    Matters were further compounded by NBCUniversal launching a measurement RFP in August, calling for “measurement independence”.

    Hopes are now pinned on Nielsen ONE, the single cross-media product which will provide reach and frequency metrics by delivering a holistic, de-duplicated view of both content and ad performance regardless of screen, device or platform. The new flagship currency expected to launch in 2022 aims to address the pressing concern of duplication in CTV measurement, at the same time bringing linear TV measurement on par with digital viewing.

    Noteworthy here is the fact that Nielsen has been on an extended hiatus for its digital ad ratings (DAR) service since October last year. In January, it entered another six-month hiatus for its local TV ratings service, which was also extended through the end of 2021. On August 11, Nielsen had further initiated the accreditation hiatus process for its National TV ratings service with the MRC; all in an attempt to concentrate its audit-related efforts on continuing to address panel concerns alongside the transformation of the National TV product and development of Nielsen ONE.

    In fact, going beyond the unifier currency, Nielsen has been heading in his direction for quite some time now.  The big highlights were its decision to measure CTV campaigns on YouTube and YouTube TV for the first time (announced October 2020) and the Roku-Nielsen strategic alliance in March 2021.

    YouTube, vice-president – global solutions, Debbie Weinstein had said, “Over 100 million people in the US watch YouTube and YouTube TV on their connected TVs every month. Advertisers are asking for third-party measurement partners like Nielsen to provide a complete view of YouTube and YouTube TV audiences, so they can understand the scale of the audience they’re able to reach through CTV campaigns.”

    In March, Roku entered into an agreement to acquire Nielsen’s Advanced Video Advertising (AVA) business which includes Nielsen’s video automatic content recognition (ACR) and dynamic ad insertion (DAI) technologies. The objective of the acquisition was to accelerate Roku’s launch of an end-to-end DAI solution with TV programmers. Additionally, Nielsen and Roku forged a strategic partnership to integrate complementary Nielsen ad and content measurement products into the Roku platform and further advance Nielsen ONE. Roku is a leading American manufacturer of digital media players. The Company also operates the No. 1 TV streaming platform in the US as measured by hours streamed (Kantar 2020).

    Given that tech-led innovation has a history of effecting the worldwide industry overhauls in a not-so-organic manner, these developments, though specific to the US, are being carefully studied in India. While the connected TV/OTT ecosystem in the country is not as well developed and deeply entrenched yet, it is relevant here to recall Barc India’s intent to initiate ‘one video view’ measurement, announced last September by former CEO Sunil Lulla. The much-awaited and much-touted Nielsen ONE may well serve as a template or the indicator of the nearness of an inevitable change, if not a universal go-ahead for players globally.

  • ZEE5 emerges as top pick for brands, courtesy user growth, ad-suite, transparent measurement

    ZEE5 emerges as top pick for brands, courtesy user growth, ad-suite, transparent measurement

    MUMBAI: Brands cannot overlook over-the-top (OTT) platforms while planning media mix. Broadcaster-led streaming services like ZEE5, Hotstar, VOOT with their impressive number of monthly active users and large scale of content have started taking away some of the TV ad dollars. But the lack of unified measurement has been one of the major concerns of brands as they want clarity on impact and reach. However, while the industry is grappling with the hardship, ZEE5 has initiated numerous partnerships to offer measurable results to its advertiser community.

    ZEE5 entered partnerships with Moat, a standard verification across the digital industry that measures viewability of video and display ads. The streaming service’s digital creatives are exceeding Moat benchmarks thus giving more confidence to brands that users are spending more time viewing them and ads are reaching completion more frequently. While the Moat benchmark of ad playing to completion is 39.4 per cent, ZEE5 has touched 71 per cent. For Moat’s audibility, the benchmark for the percentage of impressions where the video was audible at a given period of time is 47.5 per cent, while ZEE5 has almost doubled to 93.9 per cent.

    A recent report from Deloitte Global predicted that revenue from ad-supported video services will reach an estimated $32 billion in 2020 whereas Asia (including China and India) will lead with $15.5 billion in revenue in 2020, nearly half of the global total. Although the report came out before COVID-19 crisis and there might be changes in statistics, but the increasing affinity of brands towards streaming services is significantly noticeable. At such a critical juncture, ZEE5 will have an edge over others on the back of credibility from a third-party tool.

    Last year, ZEE5 also integrated with Nielsen to deliver the best accountability for brands and partners on their advertising front. The Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings (DAR) provides a method of measuring online advertising audiences, delivering reach, frequency and gross rating point (GRP) metrics along with demographics like age and gender. Moreover, DAR reports demographic information from Facebook, with Nielsen correction & calibration factors.

    ZEE5 has been taking proactive measures as AVOD business is poised for growth. The Deloitte report also added that these streaming services are in the process of convincing advertisers to shift some of the TV ad budgets to streaming video by placing forward innovative ad models and personalised content. 

    As brands look at more consumer insights and metrics while deciding on marketing mix spends,  ZEE5 also offers data from the Media Rating Council (MRC). MRC is a standard devised to determine whether an ad impression is viewable or not. According to MRC, a display ad will be considered as “viewable” if 50 per cent of the ad creative is visible for at least one second in the viewable space of the browser. ZEE5 is overreaching CTR and VTR also, as per MRC standard. While other OTT platforms have 30-40 per cent VTR, ZEE5 has more than double, ranging between 75-85 per cent. At the same time, ZEE5 achieves 0.5-1 per cent CTR while other OTT platforms attain 0.2-0.5 per cent.

    ZEE5 is leaving no stone unturned to maximise the ROI for brands. It launched an industry-disrupting ad-suite last year which helps deliver brand KPIs on aspects like reach, saliency, lead generation and SOV while allowing for segmentation, personalisation and measurability to ensure higher returns on marketing investments. 

    AdVault helps advertisers to reach its target through a vast range of solutions as per the campaign needs. AMLI5 supports bands to intensify the impact by offering influencers marketing, social media, content marketing, brand integrations, SMS-email campaigns. On the other hand, Play5 helps brands integrate with the content through customised gamification, branded polls and quiz. Wishbox enhances the chart aiming at higher engagement through video commerce. Infonomix leverages the flexibility and effectiveness of Ad Suit to deliver value through action led campaign planning.

    ZEE5’s humungous number of monthly active users have already accentuated its top position in the pecking order of the streaming services. The platform has also been named ‘India’s Most Desired Video Streaming Brand’ by TRA’s Most Desired Brands 2020 report. The smart user interface and depth of content across languages have taken it beyond the premium tier easily. ZEEL’s big bet on OTT has undoubtedly emerged as a way for brands to reach masses on the back of its content, tech and data.