NEW YORK—Nielsen has introduced more than 200 new advanced audiences segments in a move designed to help marketers move beyond traditional audience demos. The new segments are available immediately via the company’s cross-media planning and measurement solution, Nielsen ONE.

The new segments, which draw on Nielsen’s consumer insights solutions arm, Scarborough, cover many of today’s key advertising categories, such as automotive, retail, lifestyle, political and even media habits (consumers of local news, heavy radio listeners, heavy social media users, and more).

Nielsen reported that this expansion is a strategic response to the industry’s urgent demand for addressability and interoperability at scale.

Pairing Scarborough’s national consumer dataset with Nielsen ONE’s cross-media insights creates a marketing intelligence platform that gives clients everything they need to understand their audience in one place. Streamlining this process helps facilitate a more efficient ad marketplace by ensuring that media spend is optimized from the initial strategy through to final impact, significantly reducing waste and driving higher ROI.

Looking forward, Nielsen also said that it plans to build on that momentum by launching hundreds of additional advanced audiences segments in the coming months to further expand on this existing library.

“For decades, Scarborough has been the gold standard for deep consumer and market insights. We’ve combined Scarborough’s trusted consumer data with Nielsen ONE to meet the demands of a modern, outcomes-driven industry. This integration gives marketers the specific insights they need to reach the right people and accurately measure their campaign’s success,” said Ellie Pryor, vice president, global audiences & identity, Nielsen. “The end result is a solution that provides marketers with actionable insights to inform their campaign planning and measurement.”

As the process of buying ads and developing marketing campaigns for multiple platforms becomes both more important and more complex, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released its “2025 Unified Media Planning Playbook.”

The playbook is designed to help advertisers navigate an increasingly fragmented media landscape by taking a deep dive into the realities of cross-platform video planning and execution in an increasingly fragmented ecosystem across connected TV, online video, social video and free ad-supported streaming television (FAST).

It also aims to provide a pragmatic framework to help marketers navigate the complexities of fragmented identity systems, inconsistent measurement standards and increasing signal loss in today’s privacy-centric media environment, the IAB said.

The IAB described some of the key themes as follows:

• “Embrace the patchwork: Unified planning today means stitching together modular solutions like CDPs, clean rooms, and identity graphs—not chasing a single-stack fix.
• “Fragmentation is here to stay: With each video channel operating in its own data silo and identity environment, true interoperability remains a work in progress.
• “Measurement is messy: Marketers must layer A/B tests, MMM, outcome-based models, and hybrid KPIs to fill in the blanks across platforms.
• “Privacy and signal loss are redefining strategy: The end of cookies and IDs is accelerating reliance on contextual targeting, first-party data and clean-room collaboration.”

The full playbook can be accessed here.

NEW YORK—In advance of the Consumer Electronic Show (CES), NBCUniversal has unveiled new details on how it is working to redefine cross-platform, audience-based advertising for the media industry with the full-scale launch of its One Platform Total Audience. 

As part of the full launch, NBCU reported that One Platform Total Audience is now using AI-driven planning and activation technology as well as new investments in automation and data to provide brands unduplicated reach through a single media buy across platforms for  linear and streaming.

“From day one, NBCUniversal has evolved its business to connect with consumers where they are, while giving advertisers a seat at the table,” said Mark Marshall, chairman, NBCUniversal Global Advertising & Partnerships. “2024 will be a watershed year for change. Seismic shifts in measurement will throw everyone’s media mix models up in the air, presenting a singular opportunity to transact on strategic audiences and measure real KPIs for marketers. With One Platform Total Audience, we are empowering our clients to supercharge their media schedules in a whole new way and maximize the effectiveness of their ad dollars to achieve their business goals.” 

NBCU said that One Platform Total Audience was developed for marketers to create new opportunities to find scale, drive incremental reach, and keep brand safety top of mind in their cross-platform campaigns.

More specifically, the technology uses machine learning and predictive analytics to produce a single media plan across linear and streaming that targets a brand’s specific audience segment and strengthens their effectiveness. 

In addition, One Platform Total Audience has access to NBCUniversal’s entire content portfolio. The technology leverages the company's first party data, along with advertisers’ data sets, to better reach the consumers who matter most to brands at scale, NBCU reported. 

The company also noted that nearly 60% of NBCUniversal’s advertising clients use audience-based buying to drive incremental value, and there has been a continued shift to strategic audiences, with +25% growth compared to a year ago. 

NBCUniversal announced it will transact 50% of its business on strategic audiences instead of traditional demographics in 2024, meeting industry demand and enabling brands to effectively engage viewers wherever they consume content. 

The company also noted that the platform is seeing broad industry adoption. For Q1 2024, One Platform Total Audience has sold out across all major categories including tech, auto, and retail. As a result of this broad industry adoption across brands and agencies, the company will expand access to One Platform Total Audience in Q2 2024. 

New features and tech advances that are now available with the full launch of One Platform Total Audience include: 

• NEW AUTOMATION: One Platform Total Audience will utilize machine learning to automate budget allocation across linear and streaming, identifying an optimized media mix to engage marketers’ precise audience segments. NBCUniversal will also add programmatic guaranteed for media buys with One Platform Total Audience, leading to more automated and turnkey streaming activation. And to make transacting against strategic audiences simple, the company will add new buy-side automated order and workflow management.   
• ENHANCED DATA INTEROPERABILITY: With interoperability integrations across the media ecosystem, advertisers and agencies have more flexible and efficient paths to onboard their data than ever before, all built with privacy top of mind. As NBCUniversal’s streaming footprint has grown, marketers now have better match rates and more scale to reach their target audiences. 

RESTON, Va.—Advertising in a digital era will go under the microscope as Comscore and lab-based research organization MediaScience team up to study how and why cross-platform advertising works and examine audience measurement benchmarks, the companies announced this week.

“Comscore is extremely excited to be working closely with MediaScience on these innovative studies to establish critical benchmarks of cross-platform success,” said Jeff Boehme, senior vice president of TV and cross-platform research at Comscore.

The companies will conduct a series of industry thought leadership studies in their quest for answers. Comscore and MediaScience have identified three areas in which they will focus efforts.

Those include developing thought leadership regarding how ads work across platforms; creating client-specific solutions, such as cross-platform and brand integration research; and advancing measurement of in-room attention and engagement for OTT advertising.

By collaborating, the companies have the chance to “see exciting breakthroughs in better understanding the cross-platform landscape,” said Duane Varan, CEO of MediaScience.

More information is available on the Comscore website.