Nielsen stumbles, starts gain in a new multiverse of measurement

heInda Yakarino launched a challenge at its launch on May 16 at NBCUniversal’s preview presentation to advertisers. “We’re getting rid of what we all know is broken and we’re finally getting rid of the legacy,” NBCU’s President of Global Advertising and Partnership told people gathered at Radio City Music Hall. Though he didn’t say the word “Nielsen,” Icarino was speaking directly to a company that has held a virtual monopoly on television ratings for decades, a domain that faces its biggest challenge to date.

Yaccarino concluded his article on advertising measurement by saying that he expected “a future in which many currencies produce massive results”. That market is starting to take shape as several other companies, including analytics-heavy web Comscore and new players like iSpot.tv and VideoAmp, struggle to position themselves to help buyers and sellers determine the number of commercial buyers and suppliers. .

“We really feel this is not going to be a one-size-fits-all approach,” said Samantha Rose, chief investment strategist at Horizon Media, whose clients include Burger King and Capital One, and which she is ready to implement. Using up to 15% of your startup business using new measurement tools. “It will really be a multi-currency ecosystem, including Nielsen of course.”

Nielsen, led by CEO David Keane, has come under intense criticism for a range of errors related to its ratings product in recent years, from allegations about the size and quality of its national panel in the early months of the pandemic. Lack of domestic spectators at the start of the 2020-21 season. These issues led the Board of Media Ratings, the Industry Oversight Board, to revoke Nielsen’s accreditation for national television ratings last year (the company could apply for a disapproval, but didn’t). NBCUniversal launched a public call for competitive metrics before announcing a deal with iSpot to make it its alternative currency of choice. Media companies (including NBCU) and ad buyers continued to use Nielsen ratings, but the loss of accreditation “forced everyone to reconsider these new providers,” Rose said.

The feeling that there is a deal has also caused an inflow of capital into measurement companies. In the last six weeks alone, Goldman Sachs has invested $325 million in iSpot. VideoAmp acquired ad technology company Elsy, and analytics firm EDO received an infusion of $80 million in funding led by Shamrock Capital. Nielsen himself is closing a $16 billion private deal with a group of private equity firms led by Evergreen Coast Capital Corp. and Brookfield Business Partners.

But that doesn’t mean Nielsen will suddenly find itself excluded from the market it’s been in for a long time. Disney has publicly committed to continue working with the company as it moves toward a platform for a measurement product called Nielsen One. Agencies like Horizon still do most of their business in Nielsen currency. And while the company name hasn’t been featured in any of the documents to date, ad sales managers at Fox (Mariana Gambel) and Disney (Rita Ferro) focused less on how they valued success and more on how they they valued success. ad buyers of your investment. Really reach a large and desirable audience.

John SteinlaufWarner Bros. Discovery’s head of advertising sales took center stage at his company’s May 18 presentation. While he didn’t call out Nielsen as explicitly as NBCU’s Yaccarino, he did speak to Warner Bros. about Discovery’s advertising capabilities and its participation in the network’s proprietary OpenAP consortium in front of a screen displaying the Comscore, iSpot and VideoAmp logos. “Our goal is to learn as much as we can,” Steinlauf said, “and ultimately have a multi-currency market that benefits everyone.”

However, with so many tools and measurement basics, you need to understand what each instrument can do best. Advertising agencies and media companies spend time on the same page about which currency to use and which tools are best, for example, for broad demographic measurements and which are more appropriate for granular information.

However, it’s clear that the notion that a single currency makes ad sales transactions more fluid, an idea that Nielsen has marketed for a long time, is not the most important one for many ad buyers. It remains to be seen how many companies will survive or thrive in a more competitive market, but business fragmentation is likely to occur for at least the next few years.

“I think it will be interesting how it goes. There may be some companies that are more focused on measuring performance and others that are directly focused on measuring campaigns and audience,” says Rose of Horizon Media. “It’s hard to say how much will be discussed in the future, but from a monetary point of view, of course, I think there will be more than one.”

Nielsen Rating Competitors

A version of this story first appeared in the May 25 issue. the hollywood reporter Daily. Click here to subscribe.