Nielsen and EDO will integrate data for planning, buying and outcomes measurement, marking the first time either measurement company has collaborated with a rival. 

Under the deal, Nielsen One audience measurement data will be available as an input for EDO’s predictive outcomes solution for mutual clients, and EDO will make its search-based outcomes measurement data available as an input for Nielsen Media Impact planning software.

Initial alpha users of the integrated Nielsen and EDO offerings include Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney Advertising and IPG's Mediahub, according to an announcement from the companies during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Their competitive overlap is relatively small: Nielsen is focused primarily on TV and other media audience measurement, including demographic and purchase-based segments in some cases, while EDO is focused on measuring the impact of linear and connected TV advertising on search response. As a result, they share many clients, who’ve often been forced to integrate their data manually on spreadsheets and were clamoring for the collaboration, according to executives of both companies.

“I took notice of EDO some years ago, because I started seeing [CEO Kevin Krim] on stage with a lot of our mutual clients and seeing the work that he did was really interesting,” said Deirdre Thomas, Nielsen’s chief product officer for audience measurement. “How much value he was clearly driving for them really caught my attention. So I got to know him.”

Thomas also was hearing from mutual clients asking why they aren’t working together.

“Almost everybody’s a Nielsen client,” Krim said. And EDO would frequently hear from its own clients about the difficulty of taking Nielsen data, EDO data and other video data, dropping it into spreadsheets and “trying to mash it all together for these optimal plans,” he said.

As streaming becomes an increasingly important part of more media plans, Krim said, “the complexity just explodes. A pivot table in Excel just can’t handle the diversity of cross-screen television.”

The first phase of the integration will join Nielsen’s national TV measurement, including live streaming, with EDO’s convergent TV database, which covers cross-category streaming ad airings and every national TV ad airing since 2015. In a later phase, Nielsen plans to integrate EDO’s predictive outcomes data into Nielsen One Ads for planning, measuring and optimizing campaign performance.

The combined datasets will be available for linear planning in 2023 and linear and connected TV planning and measurement in 2024.

Alpha users of the integrated data applauded the collaboration, and EDO and Nielsen hinted that additional measurement tie-ups could follow.

“We’ve been working with Nielsen and EDO on outcomes-based measurement, and it’s a great step forward for our industry to see them join forces,” Rita Ferro, president of Disney Advertising, said in a statement. “As a premier alpha partner in Nielsen One’s new integration with EDO, we look forward to seeing a solution centered around performance.”

“By integrating Nielsen and EDO data into a unified view, WBD can be that much more effective at helping brands achieve optimal reach, frequency, engagement, and business outcomes,” Jon Steinlauf, chief U.S. advertising sales officer at Warner Bros. Discovery, said in the statement.

“The convergent TV marketplace needs increased collaboration across the board to solve complex measurement challenges that seem to evolve by the day,” said Sean Corcoran, U.S. CEO at Mediahub Worldwide. Nielsen and EDO’s “creative solution,” he said “minimizes complexity for brands and their agency partners, helping us plan and optimize high-impact campaigns with ease.”

While Krim declined to discuss integrations with Nielsen rivals, he indicated those are also possible in the future. And Thomas likewise indicated that Nielsen also is looking to integrate with more measurement partners ultimately.

“As we move forward in our Nielsen One journey to establish that as the currency of choice for cross-platform measurement, we want that to be the lifeblood of the industry and underpinning all kinds of measurement that drives value for publishers, advertisers and agencies. We don't just want it to sit within Nielsen and that to be the stop. We want it to be a bedrock upon which other things [are] built. And this is just the beginning.”

In a video interview with Ad Age last year, EDO co-founder (and actor) Edward Norton predicted the future of TV measurement will be more like the Justice League and less like “Highlander” with one dominant player, even after a likely private-equity backed rollup in the space.

“It feels like there’s an increasing consensus and comfort with the idea that the system is going to work with this basket of a few, really smart differentiated things,” Norton said, “as opposed to one oligopoly that they’re shackled to, and I think that’s really exciting.”