ITV

Tag: Nielsen ONE

  • Nielsen, Experian expand agreement to enhance identity demographics

    Nielsen, Experian expand agreement to enhance identity demographics

    Mumbai: Nielsen and Experian have announced an expanded strategic initiative to enhance identity data in the United States for digital measurement of the open web. Experian marketing data assets will enhance the Nielsen Identity System by providing persistent IDs for open web measurement, increasing coverage and interoperability by supporting audience measurement across screens and devices that are consistent and comparable.

    Forthcoming cookie deprecation is fundamentally changing the advertising ecosystem. Combined with the deterioration of other digital identifiers, there’s greater emphasis on people-first measurement approaches to accurately count and deduplicate audiences across platforms as well as report on a person’s characteristics, thus addressing advertising waste and fraud.

    Integrating Experian marketing data assets into the Nielsen ID System will further strengthen Nielsen’s ability to match person-level data to devices, increasing the scale and accuracy of demographic distribution for reported impressions for Nielsen’s Audience Measurement and Outcomes products.

    Advertisers and publishers can use Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings (DAR) with more confidence knowing the solution leverages a variety of best-in-class data sources that are aimed towards appropriately assigning and deduplicating audience demographics across devices, content and ad exposure. This initiative builds on the two companies’ longstanding relationship where Nielsen is already leveraging demographic data from Experian in Connected TV DAR services.

    As part of the Nielsen ID System, the Nielsen ID Graph links billions of first and third party signals which are calibrated against, and validated by, Nielsen’s people-based panels and truth sets. This joint initiative will further position Nielsen to scale its ID Resolution System and deliver deduplicated audiences across linear and digital platforms as part of NielsenOne, its cross-media measurement solution.

    “This expanded agreement with Experian immediately enriches Nielsen’s Identity System in the US, and showcases our commitment to independent measurement and marketplace interoperability,” said Nielsen chief data and research officer Mainak Mazumdar. “This is an important milestone as we continue to evolve our technologies and methodologies as we move toward NielsenOne, underpinning a strong digital measurement capability which helps with the vision of a true cross-platform that measures across all screens.”

    “Experian’s goal is to enable privacy-forward identity in the marketing ecosystem, helping brands build smarter audience strategies and powering more robust cross-platform measurement,” said Experian Marketing Services SVP – strategy and partnerships Aimee Irwin. “We are excited to expand our longstanding strategic partnership with Nielsen, bringing addressability at scale through connectivity and interoperability across the ever evolving identity landscape.”

  • Nielsen, The Trade Desk announce strategic alliance for open internet

    Nielsen, The Trade Desk announce strategic alliance for open internet

    Mumbai: Nielsen and The Trade Desk on Thursday announced a strategic partnership to power identity resolution for open internet measurement in key international markets around the world. 

    The Trade Desk will help fuel Nielsen’s demographic data starting with France, Italy and the United Kingdom. Japan, Australia and Germany will launch on 1 April, with plans to launch in other Asian and European markets, in addition to Canada and Mexico, on a regular cadence following the initial releases in 2022. 

    Nielsen will integrate demographic data provided by The Trade Desk into the Nielsen ID System to provide more scope and accuracy in Nielsen’s digital ad measurement for the open internet, thereby connecting digital impressions to demographics across millions of devices. This will help in advancing more robust measurement and reporting across digital media, particularly over-the-page advertising, in key international markets that have the most room to benefit.  

    Advertisers and publishers can use Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings with more confidence knowing that the solution is aimed towards appropriately assigning and deduplicating audience demographics across mobile and PC platforms when a digital ad is viewed. With this initiative, Nielsen becomes a preferred measurement provider of The Trade Desk and builds on the two companies’ long-standing relationship.

    As part of the Nielsen ID System, the Nielsen ID Graph is calibrated against, and validated by, Nielsen’s people-based panels and truth sets. This deal will further position Nielsen to scale its ID Resolution System globally and truly deliver deduplicated audiences across linear and digital platforms as part of Nielsen One, its cross-media measurement solution.  

    “This strategic partnership with The Trade Desk immediately scales Nielsen’s Identity System globally, and showcases our commitment to independent measurement and marketplace interoperability, facilitating an open ecosystem for the media industry, with audiences de-duplicated across multiple platforms,” said Nielsen COO Karthik Rao. “We continue to evolve our technologies and methodologies as we move towards Nielsen One and this is a very important milestone for that vision of true cross-platform measurement across all screens, underpinned by a strong digital measurement capability.”

    “As the world’s largest independent demand-side platform, The Trade Desk is in a prime position to provide the open internet with a standard of measurement that improves data-driven decisioning, advertising performance and transparency,” stated The Trade Desk chief data officer Michelle Hulst. “We have long believed that it takes all of us to support the digital media ecosystem, especially in the world of measurement. We look forward to advancing the open internet together with Nielsen internationally.”

  • Nielsen One Alpha launches with Disney and Magna

    Nielsen One Alpha launches with Disney and Magna

    Mumbai: Nielsen has revealed the first iteration of Nielsen One – its single cross-platform measurement solution. The newest advancement ‘Nielsen One Alpha’ deduplicated ad measurement will be debuting at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. 

    Alpha will continue to evolve with new feature additions, enhancements, and model improvements leading up to the launch of Nielsen One in the fourth quarter of 2022.

    Disney and Magna have joined several agencies, advertisers, networks, and digital publishers as Nielsen One Alpha participants from both the buy and sell sides of the industry. Access to Nielsen One Alpha will give users the ability to measure advertising content across linear as well as digital platforms and provide holistic and harmonised ad metrics. 

    Nielsen One Alpha will be specific to ad campaigns, unveiling the first cross-platform measurement system of its kind that offers both comparability and audience deduplication across all screens (linear TV, connected TV, computer and mobile). Media buyers and sellers will for the first time have the most holistic view of their ads across consumer delivery systems and platforms in a harmonised manner—crucial as the linear and digital landscapes continue to rapidly converge. The deduplicated ad measurement metrics account for age and gender information.

    “All our hard work this past year has positioned us to take this significant step in fundamentally changing the game and providing the industry with what it wants, needs and deserves,” said Nielsen COO Karthik Rao.

    “We are on track to deliver our single cross-platform measurement solution in the fourth quarter of 2022, as planned and in a manner that will support the $100 billion video advertising ecosystem. The Alpha launch serves as a clear proof point in our ability to deliver and we are working closely with a diverse group of clients on this important step. In fact, Nielsen One will bring together all the intelligence we have to date in order to help clients capitalise on consumers’ rapidly shifting media habits,” added Rao.

    Nielsen will continue to release major enhancements to Nielsen One, leading up to its December 2022 launch, aimed at expanding its coverage, delivering comparability across linear TV and digital and strengthening the quality and usability of its data solutions.  

    “There’s a critical need for the evolution of measurement to truly reflect audiences and engagement, and Disney is uniquely positioned to help define and develop that roadmap,” stated Disney media & entertainment distribution head of research, insights and analytics Julie DeTraglia. “We are pleased to join the Nielsen One Alpha program to ensure it accurately creates a holistic view of ad performance and content viewership for the industry.”

    “We are pleased to be working with Nielsen to provide insight and feedback regarding Nielsen One and ensure it delivers on its promise of being a truly holistic cross-screen measurement solution,” said Magna EVP and managing director of audience intelligence & strategy Brian Hughes.

    This news builds on a series of industry-leading enhancements made by Nielsen over the past year, including the transformation of its digital measurement, onboarding big data for inclusion into its National TV measurement service in September 2022, rebranding its streaming suite, unveiling its cookieless approach, rolling out an ID Resolution System and most recently, enhancing its national television measurement by measuring viewing in a more precise manner with individual commercial metrics.

  • Nielsen enhances identity system for digital ad measurement in 15 new markets

    Nielsen enhances identity system for digital ad measurement in 15 new markets

    Mumbai: Nielsen has announced the release of its enhanced identity system for digital ad ratings in 15 markets starting on 1 February 2022. This change enables more accurate digital ad measurement, connecting digital impressions to the demographics of people across billions of devices in preparation for a cookieless future, it said.

    Following the roll out in the UK, Italy, and France on 1 February, the enhanced Nielsen Identity System for digital ad ratings is planned for release in Japan, Australia, India, and Germany on 1 April; Spain, Brazil, Indonesia, and Canada on 1 May; and Singapore, Mexico, Thailand, and Hong Kong on 1 June. Nielsen plans to release the enhanced Identity System across other markets on a monthly cadence following the initial releases in 2022, said the company in a statement.

    In addition, Nielsen continues to enter into and expand its relationships with both global and local data providers to power up the Nielsen Identity System. Today the firm has added more than two billion de-duplicated identifiers across markets into the Identity System, growing every day.

    “With this enhancement to our Identity System, we are taking another step to assure the longevity of ad measurement amidst the rapidly evolving digital ecosystem,” commented Nielsen SVP – product management Sarah Miller. “Because of Nielsen’s unique data assets, we are not only able to adjust and correct licensed third-party user registration data using panels, we have also developed sophisticated machine learning algorithms to cluster digital IDs into people and correct for any possible imbalances from the market’s universe of users. It is this advanced data science methodology fuelled by the sheer volume of Nielsen Identities that will empower the digital ad measurement into the future.”

    To combat the issue of cookie and mobile ad id erosion and in preparation for an increasingly fragmented future, Nielsen previously announced the revolution of digital audience measurement by providing holistic people-based measurement across devices, de-duplicating across platforms and publishers.

    The Nielsen Identity System serves to unify the identity data that Nielsen receives in an interoperable way across the media ecosystem. Advertisers and publishers can use Nielsen measurement with confidence knowing that when a digital ad is viewed then the measured demographics are appropriately assigned and the audiences are deduplicated across mobile and PC platforms in order to get to true people-based metrics. Nielsen achieves this by uniquely combining Nielsen assets with third-party data sets calibrated against truth sets.

    “Nielsen continues to evolve its technologies and methodologies for independent measurement of audiences as the industry itself evolves to utilise cross-media measurement,” said Nielsen’s international chief growth officer and president Sean Cohan. “Nielsen’s strategic measurement approach positions the company to deliver deduplicated audiences across linear and digital as part of Nielsen One.” 

  • 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.