IAB names Nielsen as official online audience metric
The Interactive Advertising Bureau has revealed The Nielsen Company as its preferred provider of online audience measurement.
This morning’s announcement comes after a search which formally kicked off last year.
The final contenders were Colmar Brunton with Gemius; ComScore; Nielsen Online; Roy Morgan Research with Effective Measure and Vizisense.
The announcement sees the introduction of a hybrid system which uses both a consumer panel and tags on websites.
Systems based only on site tags tend to vastly overcount unique visitors because of consumers using more than one device to go online, or deleting cookies showing they have previously visited.
The deal sees Nielsen strengthen its grip on audience emasurement in the Australian media industry. Although the IAB can only recommend the offering, it is almost certain that its members – including all of the major online publishers – will sign up.
The new offering – known as Nielsen Online Ratings (hybrid) is ready to launch immediately. However, although it will include data on mobile usage, the system will not be as initially robust at tracking this rapidly changing area.
Speaking at the announcement in Sydney this morning, IAB CEO Paul Fisher said the new offering would make it easier for planners to compare online to other media because it would offer more reliable reach and frequency metrics.
Meanwhile, researcher John Grono, representing media agency body the Media Federation, called for auditing to follow as part of the process. He said: “I’d want to get the Audit Bureau involved. I think we want to audit every page.”
At present very few of the large websites have signed up to the Audit Bureau’s online auditing service – in part because many of them still autorefresh pages, including ads, on certain areas of their sites and this would fail the audit standards.
Fishersaid the issue would be discussed: “One of the things we will do now is come up with a compliance process and within that online audit might spring from.”
Fisher claimed: “This is without a doubt the most significant step to date in an ongoing process to evolve and improve how we measure online audiences and advertising.”
Scott McClellan, CEO of the Australian Association of National Advertisers, said: “The online space has been using a variety of measurement tools, which has made it extremely difficult for advertisers to understand the value of audience data. This move to an industry supported standardised currency will allow advertisers, in partnership with their agencies, to better understand the audience online use to assist in planning where to invest their media budget.”
Anyone wanting to access the data, or to carry Nielsen tags on their sites, will need to subscribe to the service. Nielsen boss Negan Clarken decliend to discuss costs but said a rate card would be available.
- The new system will be unveiled to the industry in a briefing session at the Mumbrella360 conference in a fortnight’s time. Those on the panel will include Matt Bruce, Nielsen’s MD for media audience measurement; Maxus boss David Gaines, who heads the MFA’s digital committee, and the AANA’s Scott McLellan. Tickets are available on the Mumbrella360 website.
wow – now there’s a shock….
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Given that Nielsen has been the main supplier of online audience measurement for Australia for at least ten years how does this change anything.
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best of a mediocre bunch i’d say
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Well that was a good use of everyone’s time.
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@jerrys. A few things are changing. They’re changing the methodology from browser based (cookies) to a panel based system. They’re also taking into account the number of measured page views to calibrate the data.
Also, they’re expected to be more expensive and, due to the nature of panel based data, even less transparent.
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It never ceases to amaze me how little people know about the current measurement systems, yet feel qualified to comment on something based on a press release.
Wait until you know some detail then make your mind up – oops – too late you already have.
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Hi Sinclair,
Obviously I can’t speak for the others that have commented, but I think you’d be surprised about how close most of the people in the industry are to the detail of these changes. They’ve been discussed within the industry for years, and anyone that cared to listen has been able to get a lot of detail around the proposed changes. Also, the NetView product which is forming the base of the Hybrid numbers is widely available, and has been known to produce some questionable results.
So, with that in mind, and considering that we’re all being asked to commit to multi year contracts, don’t you think it irresponsible to take a ‘wait and see’ approach? Not to mention the financial commitment we’re being asked to make; for many of us the output of this product will have a material impact on revenue too.
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Why would Nielsen unveil this at a 1600 dollar conference and not at an event for the clients who pay them 50-100k a year?
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Hi Nathan,
I was at the IAB announcement yesterday. I gather from that, that there is a state-by-state education drive so I’m sure there’ll be other opportunities.
However, because of the timing, the IAB offered to provide a session at Mumbrella360 with whoever the winning bidder turned out to be. That proposal was one of those voted for by Mumbrella readers when we did our call for curated sessions some months back.
It makes sense to offer them the opportunity because this is new, relevant information for Mumbrella360 delegates. I can’t speak for Nielsen, but if you can’t get along to Mumbrella360, then I’m sure there will be other opportunities too.
Cheers,
Tim – MUmbrella
I know a thing or two about audience measurement. I know how technically challenging it is, how quickly things evolve, how you’ll never please everyone, and that you’ll never have a 100% accurate system. I also believe that panel based methodologies and online audience measurement are destined to provide questionable results.
Panels were crested to measure a finite set of ‘channels’ i.e. TV. accessed via lounge rooms around the country. Yet they’re still being used today to try and ‘measure’ infinite channels across a multitude of devices.
It’s a crazy mixed up world!
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