Nielsen rivals are gaining acceptance among advertisers, study finds

Advertisers and agencies are more ready than ever for alternative TV measurement currencies, even as Nielsen remains the dominant player and the long-expected shift to all new currencies in the last upfront didn’t materialize, according to a survey from Advertiser Perceptions. The survey finds a continued steady shift toward trying new currencies. Two out of three advertisers in this year’s annual survey agreed that a multi-currency marketplace is the future. But advertisers also believe the industry should agree on a limited set of currencies, ideally no more than five, according to the survey, now in its third year. The percentage of agency and marketer respondents saying they’re “very familiar” with new TV currencies in the latest survey is 46%, up from only 29% in 2022. Media measurement blog Tracking TV, social and digital updates Click here The survey, part of a syndicated offering by Advertiser Perceptions and not commissioned by any measurement company, comes as the market faces a sort of forced adoption of one new currency—VideoAmp. A contract showdown between Paramount and Nielsen is entering its second month, leading Paramount to no longer price deals using Nielsen data. That means VideoAmp, previously the currency for under 3% of the roughly $80 billion U.S. TV market. Paramount, which opted to trade primarily on VideoAmp after its contract with Nielsen expired on Sept. 30, represents nearly 17% of ad-supported linear and connected TV inventory, according to The Score report issued in October by another alternative currency player (and Paramount trading option), Comscore. New Ad Age data: The 50 biggest US advertisers, ranked But that change may not be so hard for the market to swallow. About three in five respondents to the Advertiser Perceptions survey, taken in July, already said they have used alternative currencies for TV transactions in the past 12 months, and most found the results acceptable. Overall, 49% of survey respondents said alternative currencies were just as effective as Nielsen, 36% said they were more effective than Nielsen and 15% said they were less effective than Nielsen. Marketer respondents were slightly more likely than agency respondents to say alternative currencies were as or more effective than Nielsen. That seemingly runs counter to what a 4A’s committee reported in March—that new currencies “aren’t ready for primetime” when it comes to trading on age-gender demographics, though the Video Advertising Bureau, which represents TV networks, disputed that. But “just as good” isn’t necessarily good enough when it comes to adopting new currencies, said Erin Firneno, senior VP of business intelligence for Advertiser Perceptions, because doing so involves added costs for more providers, data integration and reconciling new data with historical data. Nielsen rivals can probably see more hope in their roughly two-to-one advantage among respondents who said new currencies are more effective vs. those who said they were less so. Ad Age Leading National Advertisers 2024 U.S. ad spending, rankings, analysis and profiles for the biggest marketers Click here The survey also found that 68% of respondents identified performance concerns as the biggest obstacle to alternative currency adoption—led by a lack of historical data or benchmarks and lack of standardization of terms or metrics among providers. Marketer respondents were slightly more likely than agency respondents to identify performance concerns with alternative currencies. “Our respondents are saying Nielsen is still the leader,” Firneno said. “It’s not going away.” But she said the results do point to gradual adoption of new currencies. “Advertisers are saying they can serve a role,” she said, “and they’d be open to using new currencies with different publishers.” The Advertiser Perceptions survey was fielded July 22-31 among 200 marketer and agency respondents at director level or above who work for companies with at least $5 million in annual TV spending and are involved in media planning, buying or TV ad measurement or effectiveness research.

Nielsen rivals are gaining acceptance among advertisers, study finds

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