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.
wow – now there’s a shock….
Given that Nielsen has been the main supplier of online audience measurement for Australia for at least ten years how does this change anything.
best of a mediocre bunch i’d say
Well that was a good use of everyone’s time.
@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.
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.
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.
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?
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!