Nielsen’s acquisition of data technology company eXelate for an estimated $200 million positions it squarely in the digital camp, a move experts agree was essential to break away from its perceived image as a purveyor of panels and diaries. “It’s a recognition that the future is more than measurement and analysis,” said Dave Morgan, CEO of […]
Nielsen has acquired data-management technology platform and exchange eXelate, the companies announced Wednesday. The deal is a major foray into the programmatic arena for TV-centric researcher Nielsen, which has been looking for ways to accelerate its digital audience intelligence. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but AdExchanger sources estimated the transaction price at close to $200 […]
Digital measurement company comScore needed WPP’s investment in order to rival Nielsen in cross-platform ratings, according to one comScore partner. Although Nielsen dominates linear TV measurement, its push toward a “Total Audience” rating will improve its mobile Online Campaign Ratings tool, launched last summer. ComScore, in lockstep, rolled out a cross-platform tool in January to […]
Measurement mogul Nielsen is bullish on its evolving digital measurement capabilities – but panels aren’t going anywhere, said CEO Mitch Barns. “The future of measurement is not about choosing between panels and big data,” Barns told investors on an earnings call Thursday. “It’s about combining high-quality panels with granular data sets for the best of both […]
Jeff Lucas, head of ad sales for Viacom Music and Entertainment, likes photo-messaging app Snapchat. Because its user base is dominated by females under 25, the platform that popularized the “fleeting” SMS aligns closely with Viacom property MTV’s young millennial audience. It’s one of the reasons why MTV is test driving Snapchat’s new Discover feature, part of […]
While comScore’s Video Metrix had been limited to desktop and PC, on Monday the company unveiled an update that will allow the video measurement tool to account for mobile, tablet and over-the-top (OTT) viewership. The New York Times first reported the development. Rather than break down program- or show-level viewership, the company is now calculating cross-platform audience viewership, comScorce […]
The mad dash for offline-to-online data connections has been one of the top trends of 2014. Enterprise giant Oracle was the latest to close the loop between the online and offline worlds when it revealed Monday its intent to acquire data solutions company Datalogix. “This deal is about championing commerce,” said Ray Wang, principal analyst at […]
Dunnhumby, British grocery giant Tesco’s data science subsidiary, sits at the intersection of online and offline retail data. It mashes up CRM files and loyalty card information, which brands can use to prove sales uplift. Tesco isn’t the only retail outlet to supply this service. Walmart, for instance, turns in-store and online transaction data into […]
Nielsen is pushing a total audience measurement designed to quantify audience and campaigns across screens, but it’s unclear whether it’s a service, platform or just a new marketing pitch. Kelly Abcarian, SVP of product architecture, described the total audience measurement rating as an ongoing development for the company, building off of its existing data structure. […]
Data solutions of the sort that Datalogix provides are hot right now, and the company hopes that fact will drive up its eventual sale price. As it reached out to would-be buyers this fall, Datalogix hoped to get as much as $1 billion, sources say. Factoring in estimated 2014 revenues of $125 million, that figure […]
Datalogix, a provider of online and offline data, is nearing a sale of the business. According to multiple AdExchanger sources, the company has entertained offers in recent weeks, including from TV ratings mainstay Nielsen and Facebook. However Facebook is no longer in the running, and Nielsen is considered the most likely buyer. Although neither company […]
Twitter analytics and targeting platform StatSocial isn’t CEO Michael Hussey’s first trip to the customer data rodeo. Back in 2006, Hussey founded PeekYou, a people-based search engine that aggregates publicly available information – Twitter handles, Facebook URLs, blogs, physical address, phone number, interests, schools attended – into customer profiles that are then available for purchase. […]
Nielsen and Adobe revealed a partnership Tuesday designed to combine Nielsen’s digital audience measurement products with Adobe Analytics and Adobe Primetime, the company’s platform for online TV delivery and monetization, making both available to joint Nielsen/Adobe clients through Adobe Marketing Cloud. The result is Digital Content Ratings (DCR), a cross-platform census-based metric that aims to do for digital […]
Rentrak defended itself late last week against rival measurement firm Nielsen, whose global president Steve Hasker claimed Rentrak “never lets the facts get in the way of a good press release.” Hasker, in a Friday media briefing regarding errors Nielsen had discovered in its national networks ratings going back to March 2, opened fire on […]
WPP Group planted a stake Thursday in Rentrak by acquiring $98 million of the media measurement company’s common stock (12.4% of total shares). In return, Rentrak gets Kantar Media’s TV measurement business in the US. WPP also made a $56 million cash investment in the company, which, barring regulatory approval, would give the holding company […]
Datalogix, which is known for connecting digital media with offline sales impact, will begin to tie ad viewability to in-store ROI via a partnership with comScore, unveiled Wednesday. Marketers will be able to combine comScore’s panel and Census-based data, as well as its impression-level reporting inclusive of “90 of the top 100 properties across the […]
Consumers may spend a lot of time watching video on over-the-top devices and mobile, but advertisers still haven’t invested heavily in those areas. While panelists throughout Advertising Week in New York City agreed that the development of measurement techniques will help close that gap, device fragmentation complicates these initiatives. Still, connected TV makers and distributors […]
Rather than an isolated channel, programmatic is a means to an end – and it all starts with measurement between devices and across channels. And from measurement comes revenue. “The whole cross-device measurement question is about understanding the broader marketing goal, but we also all know that if it’s not measured, it’s not valued,” said […]
Nielsen’s revenue soared in the second quarter. The company on Tuesday reported a nearly 16% revenue growth spurt in the second quarter of 2014 to $1.6 billion, up from $1.4 billion at this time last year, minus the recent acquisitions of Arbitron and Harris Interactive. Although revenue was up, net profits were nothing to write […]
The cross-device measurement chasm just got a little smaller with the commercial release of mobile ad measurement capabilities, now available as part of Nielsen’s Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) tool. The promise of mobile web and in-app measurement is both an alluring prospect for advertisers looking for a cross-platform view of consumers across digital and TV […]
Scott Ferris, GM of television and video at Microsoft Advertising, has been in the video biz for around three decades. For seven of those years, Ferris has been at Microsoft, heading up its video business group. Most recently however, he’s taken the lead role in what Microsoft calls its Content and Entertainment business group, which […]
Audience measurement mainstay Rentrak paid homage to the staying power of programmatic when, on its Q4 earnings call just weeks ago, Vice Chairman and CEO Bill Livek credited automated advertising as a growing trend the company is now “catering to.” Rentrak has been on a tear of late, racking up headlines as a (perhaps less-publicized, […]
As the growing number of smart TVs and connected devices cause further fragmentation, de-duped cross-platform measurement has become the media planner’s imperative. Nielsen and comScore are answering the call by beefing up digital video and mobile integrations in their respective media measurement tools. Nielsen since 1950 has been inextricably linked to TV audience measurement, claiming access […]
AOL CEO Tim Armstrong addressed a crowd of close to 2,000 media buyers at its NewFront Tuesday night with an exuberant, “tonight is about connecting content with distribution.” It’s clear, with AOL, that much of that connection will happen through video. Ran Harnevo, president of AOL Video, talked up digital video and its intent to […]
When the Media Ratings Council (MRC) last week lifted its advisory against buying and selling display ads based on viewability, it marked a milestone in determining whether an ad was actually seen. However, a number of industry execs say the problem is far from solved in display (let alone video, which still lacks a common […]
Industry insiders worry that as digital video and television converge, one will cannibalize the other in terms of media allocation. Not necessarily so, said Scott Ferber, founder and CEO of video ad platform Videology, during a panel the company hosted Wednesday. Ferber shared research commissioned by Videology and conducted by Forrester Research revealing that 70% […]
The general consensus is there’s a long way to go before linear TV buys are fully automated. Despite advancements in pushing programmatic into video-on-demand (VOD) environments, the enablement of programmatic transactions in linear TV is still in its infancy. Part of this has to do with the state of the technology. “All the tools in […]
Visible World, which has been developing addressable TV technology since 2000, claims to cover nearly 90% of cable TV households in the US through its targeted ad products. The company has developed a video and TV campaign platform used by advertisers directly or by distributors to sell to advertisers. That same platform is now being […]
Much of the debate about the convergence of digital video and TV advertising has centered on budget and measurement. Members of the advertising industry have wondered whether digital video would cannibalize TV ad dollars and to what extent the right metrics are in place to effectively execute cross-platform video buys. A report from Nielsen and […]
Marketers need to fundamentally rethink the traditional purchase funnel if they want to effectively target media and messaging in the future, says Kate Sirkin, EVP and global research director of Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG). Leading a discussion at Publicis Groupe’s New York headquarters Thursday alongside social analytics agency Mashwork, Sirkin discussed how social data is unlocking […]
