Nielsen launches new UK TV ad solution
The Nielsen Company has launched a new system to measure how viewers engage with television advertising.
Nielsen IAG UK, a solution which Nielsen claims has “revolutionised TV airtime trading in the US”, aims to measure viewer engagement with TV programmes, advertising, sponsorship and product placement.
Speaking about the new venture, Alan Gould, Nielsen’s CEO, said: “UK TV advertisers now have the answer to their most important question; ‘how did my ad perform?’.
“They also want more bang for their buck and IAG helps them do this by making smarter decisions about which programmes to advertise on and which ads are working best. Going forward, we’ll see advertisers buying TV spots increasingly on the basis of how engaged the audience is not just how big it is.”
Nielsen IAG aims to monitor how closely viewers are paying attention to TV programmes and adverts, in order to provide a quality metric to support traditional TV ratings.
Darren Moore, who will head up the UK team, said: “We’ll give advertisers prompt insights on how their ad is performing, such as how it’s breaking through to the target demographic; they’ll also quickly be able to match up effective ads with programmes with high engagement; conversely, they can identify poorly performing ads and fix, replace or remove them – often within days.”
The first UK data from the new system shows that Colgate’s tooth-sensitivity test advert was the most memorable, while Mr Muscle’s superhero ad made it the most recalled advertiser.
Moore added: “Ideally an ad would score well on how many people remembered it (General Recall) but also on how many remembered who the advertiser was (Brand Recall). The first is a measure of an ad’s ability to break through and generate a memorable impression and is the main indicator of creative strength. The second reflects impact, a key gauge of how well a brand is being communicated through an ad.
“Mr. Muscle’s ‘superhero’ ad, for example, scored high on both General Recall and Brand Recall. An ad that has much higher General Recall than Brand Recall, however, may be suffering from poor brand communication. For example, the ad in which Formula One star Lewis Hamilton helps build a big red Lego-type bridge scored very high on ad recall but comparatively low on how many remembered it was for Santander.”