Nielsen started alpha tests of its TV measurement system that spans streaming and linear TV.
Nielsen ONE will measure the reach, scale and frequency of ad campaigns with deduplicated audiences across platforms. It claims it will be the first company to achieve that goal.
Nielsen ONE Alpha uses Nielsen’s ID resolution system, launched last year, as the backbone for deduplication.
The full rollout of the solution, dubbed Nielsen ONE, was announced last year and is scheduled for release in December of next year.
Nielsen knows that its customers are getting impatient at how long cross-platform measurement is taking – to put it politely. Cracks in the foundation of Nielsen’s traditional, panel-based measurements deepened during the pandemic. Nielsen is operating without its Media Rating Council (MRC) accreditation after undercounting audiences during the 2020 pandemic.
Ad measurement metrics must be transformed, because they’re integral to advancing an industry that just can’t wait any longer, said Karthik Rao, chief operating officer at Nielsen. Nielsen ONE “is what the industry has been asking for for a long time,” he added.
In lieu of testing out new features and capabilities piece by piece, Nielsen ONE Alpha is serving as version one of Nielsen ONE.
“This is not a test. This is not a pilot. This is the real thing,” Rao said. “And we’re going to unveil what this will look like with clients that are part of the program.”
The first iteration of Nielsen ONE will be accessible to 10 participating partners that span the buy-and-sell spectrum of industry players, including Disney and ad agency MAGNA.
Piloting the full version but with select partners is Nielsen’s way of getting actionable insights from customers earlier on in the process. Feedback and participation over the next year will guide future versions of the program in 2022, gearing toward its final industry-wide release of Nielsen ONE in Q4 of next year.
We’re not “talking theory and strategy anymore,” Rao added. Nielsen is putting the product in users’ hands to determine exactly what features drive value.
Future versions of Nielsen ONE throughout the new year will address more specific content valuation and outcome metrics, including ROI. Nielsen also expects to apply audience identification solutions to its linear TV ratings.
“This is just the first version. We will continue to build major enhancements and feature upgrades for the sell side, the agency side and the demand side,” Rao added.
Nielsen is confident it’s on track to meet its final anticipated product release in December 2022.
