SVOD brand integrations increasingly key to reaching holistic audiences: Nielsen

With traditional 30-second TV spots no longer cutting it in terms of complete demographic reach, marketers would be wise to consider investing in on-screen brand integrations via subscription video-on-demand platforms, a new report from Nielsen suggests. Looking at brand integrations in the YouTube Red-turned-Netflix series “Cobra Kai,” which is positioned as a sequel to the hit 1980s “Karate Kid” film franchise, Nielsen’s SVOD Brand Integration Report says that product placements in a non-ad-supported environment can be valuable for advertisers looking to reach a cord-cutter or cord-never audience. Marketers have long debated the end return that well-placed integrations, such as FedEx’s cameo in “Cast Away,” deliver to a brand—a debate that Nielsen’s new study says should be a “thing of the past,” citing the increasing investment in SVOD platforms and the platform-loyal viewers such streaming services tend to cultivate. The report found that of those viewers who watched “Cobra Kai” in the one-week period from Aug. 28 to Sep. 3, 2020, 10.4% did not watch any linear TV and another 35.5% watched very little, meaning that marketers who solely rely on traditional TV advertisements may be missing out on reaching more than four-in-10 consumers. Taking a multi-platform approach that encompasses both linear ad environments and SVOD platforms is likely the most fool-proof method of reaching a holistic demographic, the report states. “The key for brands today is to go where all the viewers are, not just the heaviest concentrations,” Nielsen says in the report. The report further surmises that there are only two primary obstacles for marketers looking to break into SVOD placements: lead time and measurement. It’ll always take forethought and expertise to write a brand into a script seamlessly, which advertisers must account for, but in terms of evaluating brand value, Nielsen believes it has created a new metric that allows integrated placements to be measured using the same criteria as traditional TV ads, effectively eliminating that hurdle. Using a 30-second TV ad as a baseline, and adjusting for factors such as duration and type of integration, the report’s methodology analyzes the value of brand placements—including Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Coors Banquet beer, Dell computers and Mercedes-Benz—all of which appear in various episodes of the first two seasons of “Cobra Kai.” As the lead character’s favorite beer, Coors was determined to be the series’ most significant and valuable branded integration, Nielsen found, with the brand receiving nearly 170 million equivalized and valued impressions among viewers of legal drinking age in the U.S. through the first four weeks that the show was available on Netflix. “Given that SVOD content is free of advertising, product placements and branded integrations provide advertisers and agencies with a modern way to integrate brands into the burgeoning streaming realm while simultaneously gaining incremental reach,” Nielsen concludes.

SVOD brand integrations increasingly key to reaching holistic audiences: Nielsen

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