Nielsen has today announced what is being described as a major step forward for multi-platform advertising measurement in the UK, with the launch of Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings.
By combining Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings with TV data from BARB, the system aims to help brands maximise the effectiveness of their cross-platform ad budgets, taking the commercial exposures from an advertiser’s TV and online ads, and reporting on the combined audience for the campaign.
As a result, advertisers, agencies and publishers will be able to record how many people, by age and gender, are seeing their ad across TV and online – both combined, or exclusively across either platform.
“Consumers are increasingly living platform-agnostic lives, and all of us in advertising need to adapt to this,” said James Oates, Nielsen’s UK managing director for digital.
“Creating a way to reach, measure and monetise inventory across screens and platforms advances the industry towards a high-calibre, seamless standard – one that will provide new opportunities for advertisers, agencies and publishers, crucially allowing a mutual exchange of value between buyer and seller.”
Beta tests have been carried out with 10 different brands, including Mecca Bingo and BSkyB, with early results showing a variance in ‘incremental reach’ (the additional people who see a campaign online who would not have seen it on TV).
“While Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings helps brands allocate their spend between TV and online by telling them about the ‘reach’ of their campaigns, the robust nature of the data and the granularity it provides now also allows them to layer on additional tools to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns with confidence,” added Oates.
“These can provide advertisers, agencies and publishers with measures of ‘resonance’ – showing what the audience thought or felt as a result of seeing the campaign – and ‘reaction’ – showing what the resulting sales effect was.”
