Nielsen brings new solution to multi-screen ad measurement market

Nielsen, a global provider of information and insights into what consumers watch and buy, recently announced a major step forward for cross-platform advertising measurement. Leveraging the Media Rating Council-accredited Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings and proprietary national TV panel, Nielsen launched Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings to deliver a picture of the impact of video advertising across screens. The solution will be commercially available Oct. 1.

Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings has been through trials with a number of the industry’s biggest players across the advertising ecosystem. ESPN, Facebook, GroupM, Hulu and Unilever are among the dozen industry leaders who participated in trials for this service, which provides unduplicated and incremental reach, frequency and GRP measures for TV and Internet advertising.

“Better understanding of the ads consumers see across all media is critical for marketers to build great campaigns — and for publishers to demonstrate the true value of their inventory,” said Brad Smallwood, head of measurement and insights at Facebook. He calls the new product “the first product that truly addresses this issue” and added, “Having a holistic, consumer-centric view of a campaign is a big step forward for the industry."

"As consumers watch their favorite TV shows across Internet-connected devices, measurement in this area becomes critical to the long-term health of the entire industry,” said Jean-Paul Colaco, SVP, advertising for Hulu.

In addition to online video advertising, Nielsen’s approach measures online display and rich media advertising in combination with TV. Industry trials, run between March and August 2012, have demonstrated the power of a high-quality, third-party solution that provides directly comparable metrics across TV and digital, measuring unique audience on each, along with overlapping audience and total combined unique audience.