Nielsen brings next-gen measurement to market—but isn't using it for deals yet

Nielsen is bringing its next-generation measurement solution to market on Jan. 11, the company announced today, but acknowledged its most detailed audience data and analytics still aren’t ready for use as currency.

The company bills Nielsen One Ads as providing consistent, comparable and de-duplicated audience numbers for campaigns across TV and other screens. The company is making good—at least with 11 days of wiggle room—on a commitment to launch Nielsen One by the end of 2022. Select clients already have had a chance to use the finished product during boot camps last month.

The company also announced the launch of Nielsen One Content Alpha, which will measure audience numbers for programming and other content across devices and distribution platforms.

Nielsen One Ads initially will report linear TV data based on “today’s average minute currency” for buying and selling, said Kim Gilberti, senior VP of product management for Nielsen, in a virtual press briefing on Tuesday. “Any of the cross-platform metrics that use the linear TV component baseline average minute audience can be used for buying and selling.”

But Nielsen One Ads also will provide more detailed data “for insights purposes, impact data for two other variations of linear TV,” she said. “One indicates how the numbers will change once big data [e.g. from set-top boxes, smart TVs and publishers directly] is integrated into linear TV. And the second takes that one step further and says what will those numbers look like where linear TV is measured at the sub-minute level.”

Those last two data sets, at this point, “can be used for research and planning purposes, but not for transaction,” Gilberti said. That includes second-by-second measurements similar to what such players as Comscore and VideoAmp offer.

Nielsen's two-fold reporting system—using panel-based numbers for currency but putting big data reports into the marketplace as well—has drawn criticism privately from some media companies and publicly from the trade organization the Video Advertising Bureau. VAB CEO Sean Cunningham has criticized simultaneous reporting of divergent and sometimes contradictory data sets.

“What we have seen of [Nielsen One] thus far reveals it to be a work in progress from all angles,” said Cunningham in an email statement. “For all involved in the buy/sell multi-screen TV and premium video ad marketplace there needs to be many successive months and quarters of stable and coherent [Nielsen One] data demonstrated, all with deep disclosures of methodology and process, before any determination of market co-readiness for [Nielsen One] as future currency can be contemplated.”

So far, while numerous networks now offer data from rivals such as Comscore, VideoAmp, iSpot.tv and Samba TV as currency alternatives, none has yet signed on to do so with Nielsen One.

Compared to competitors, what Nielsen One provides is a “holistic view” that aligns measurement across every platform “to produce numbers that are comparable across linear TV, computers and mobile,” Gilberti said. “The presence of Nielsen panel data provides an opportunity for us to have a truth set against which to calibrate and correct for any biases in the data.”

Gilberti also provided a look at the data dashboard clients can use. That includes looks at campaign reach, frequency and target efficiency across platforms and publishers by demographic, with the ability to customize looks by demographic. Ultimately, she said, the dashboard will allow for similar breakdowns according to custom audience or outcome analytics as Nielsen One launches that capability in tests beginning later this year—initially with packaged goods and automotive marketers.

Besides the dashboard, she said, clients will be able to bring Nielsen One data into their own systems through a report generation tool.

In last month’s client boot camps, reactions were overwhelmingly positive, she said. “We were really blown away by the participation.”

The Nielsen One launch comes as the company works to restore accreditation from the industry’s Media Rating Council for its legacy household panel-based TV ratings, which was suspended in 2021. Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings covering online and mobile audience measurement is also in process for re-accreditation. Nielsen has not yet begun the accreditation process for Nielsen One, which its executives have said they expect to be ready for use as upfront deal currency by next year.