Nielsen rivals tried by less than half of TV upfront advertisers, VAB survey finds
Network group finds 175 advertisers tried alternative measures, but questions remain even as use increases.
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Network group finds 175 advertisers tried alternative measures, but questions remain even as use increases
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Nielsen alternative currencies got widespread experimentation but relatively little use to actually write deals in the just-concluded TV upfronts, a new survey by the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB) Measurement Innovation Task Force suggests.
The VAB, which represents media companies, found 85% of networks reported they’re increasingly adopting new measurement providers. But even among the most active networks using Nielsen alternatives, less than half of their advertiser customers are trying them.
The survey findings covered 90% of TV ad revenue in the market, including major multi-network TV publishers and a majority of the single networks, according to the VAB. Over a quarter of the respondents—the most active users of new measurement providers—said between 25% and 49% of their upfront advertisers are using or testing a measurement option other than Nielsen, according to the VAB.
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The survey found 175 advertisers in all agreed to use or test new measurement solutions. Top advertiser categories for trying alternative currencies include automotive, packaged goods, telecommunications, quick service restaurants and pharmaceuticals. The new currencies are being tried across linear, streaming, connected TV and over-the-top formats alike.
NBC Universal reported in June that 40% of its upfront deals involved the use of non-Nielsen currencies (generally iSpot.tv, which NBCU certified as its alternative measurement provider). But the survey suggests that was toward the high end for the market.
The VAB task force decided to do the survey to get at the reality given sharply different industry narratives about how measurement currencies would change in the upfront, Sean Cunningham, CEO of the VAB, said.
“There was the theory that when the real process starts everyone would sort of revert back to legacy behavior,” he said. “And then there was the narrative that people were never going back.”
The survey suggests something in between—widespread experimentation with different currencies but relatively little deal volume written on non-Nielsen numbers. But considering the baseline last year was probably a low-single-digit percentage of national deals done using or experimenting with non-Nielsen measurements, this year shows a considerable uptick, he said.
And Cunningham said he’s seen considerable interest from marketers in data and reports about alternative measures, suggesting more experimentation and adoption likely for the 2023-24 upfronts next year.
The most common alternative measurement providers authorized by networks to write deals include Comscore, VideoAmp and iSpot, with Samba TV, TVSquared by Innovid, EDO, and 605 among other providers who report their services being used as currency in at least some TV deals. But the VAB survey didn’t break out share by provider, nor did it quantify the total amount of upfront business written on alternative currencies.
Trying to quantify that share could be tricky, Cunningham said, in part because he believes many deals involve parallel tracking using Nielsen and one or more alternatives, with the possibility that some deals include options for parties to switch currencies if they choose.
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Howard Shimmel, head of strategy for predictive analytics firm DatafuelX and a former Turner Broadcasting chief research officer, said it’s clear the marketplace has been less aggressive about using alternative currencies than appeared likely earlier in the year.
By March, it appeared that while experimentation was common, actual deal writing on non-Nielsen currencies would be rarer. And by May, with more experiments underway, variation in the numbers between legacy Nielsen panel data and newer data sets generated concerns.
“Everybody was really aggressive in January and February about alternative currencies,” Shimmel said. “Everybody has sort of pulled back. It’s going to be interesting to see what the next stage is as the data settles in and as people figure out what Nielsen One [Nielsen’s next-generation measurement using big device databases similar to what rivals use] means. But we’re nowhere near as fast as I think a lot of people in the market, including me, thought we’d be through this upfront. We in the industry were a little overly optimistic about how easy this would be.”
Jack Neff, editor at large, covers household and personal-care marketers, Walmart and market research. He's based near Cincinnati and has previously written for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Bloomberg, and trade publications covering the food, woodworking and graphic design industries and worked in corporate communications for the E.W. Scripps Co.
