Super Bowl measurement—how Nielsen, iSpot and Samba numbers diverge

It’s hard to declare a winner in the Super Bowl of audience measurement, but the competition is definitely fun to watch. But just like in the real game this year, questions about the fairness of the referees may linger well after the game is over. All this comes as TV sports audience measurement—which ultimately determines payouts for the most lucrative ad inventory on TV—faces growing scrutiny. So getting the numbers fast—and right—for the Super Bowl is important. The best and worst Super Bowl ads Ad Age reviews the Big Game commercials Click here Samba surprisingly was the first to report numbers this year, albeit only at the household level. The early audience numbers from Nielsen and iSpot.tv were actually fairly close to each other, but not to Samba’s. And on the ad effectiveness front, while The Farmer’s Dog may have had the most loved and watched ad in the Super Bowl, it didn’t do so well at pushing people past the goal line of online search. On the other hand, surprise entrant Temu did spectacularly at spawning search. Here are six key measurement takeaways. Samba reports first A surprise winner in the race to report first, Samba TV put out audience numbers on Monday morning, albeit with less data than what followed from Nielsen and iSpot, with households only and no co-viewing to provide a total number of people watching. Samba reported 36.7 million U.S. households watched the Super Bowl at some point on Sunday night, up slightly from 36.5 million last year. That doesn’t include any mobile or out-of-home viewing, or total persons, since Samba’s nationally weighted household panel of 25 million connected TVs doesn’t include co-viewing measurement. By Monday morning, Samba also had household viewership numbers for individual ads, even if it was waiting to release its full list until later in the week. Spoiler alert: The Farmer’s Dog won here, just as it did in the USA Today Ad Meter ratings. Doritos, Molson Coors, the “Creed III” promo and CrowdStrike rounded out the top five in most viewed per Samba. Watch all the Super Bowl commercials From Bud Light to Rakuten and Amazon, see all of the ads Watch them here False start for Fox on Nielsen? Nielsen wasn’t scheduled to report audience numbers until Tuesday, but Fox jumped the gun by reporting preliminary numbers early Monday evening showing an average viewership of 113 million. That number encompasses household and out-of-home viewing, a Nielsen spokeswoman said. And Fox said it’s the largest Super Bowl audience since 2017. Fox’s early release isn’t bad for Nielsen, given that waiting until Tuesday has helped fuel questions about whether Nielsen One Ads, the measurement giant’s new product merging big device data sets with its panels, will be able to deliver overnight numbers. At least in this case, Nielsen got preliminary numbers out to the public less than 24 hours after the game ended. Overall, Fox reported Nielsen data showing 182.6 million people watched all or part of the game on Fox and Fox Deportes. The “final” numbers from Nielsen, which came late Tuesday, didn't make much difference. It had the same 113 million viewers on Fox and Fox Deportes, though the historical data from Nielsen suggests it was actually the biggest Super Bowl audience since 2015, rather than the 2017 game as Fox reported. ISpot.tv and Nielsen diverge ISpot.tv reported Super Bowl data less than three hours after Fox’s release on Monday, and on the surface, the numbers looked close to Nielsen’s. ISpot.tv showed an average minute audience of 118.2 million vs. the 113 million reported by Nielsen via Fox—a difference of 4.6%. Both of those numbers include out-of-home viewers, according to the companies. (An iSpot release and follow-up answers indicated that the 16.4 million average out-of-home viewers iSpot measured through its Tunity Analytics unit were in addition to the 118.2 million, but actually, they were included in that number). Nielsen didn’t break out the out-of-home component. Out-of-home audiences in bars and restaurants—three years after the start of the pandemic—were up 32% from last year, according to iSpot. Nielsen, in its final numbers released Tuesday, reported an average of “nearly 50 million” households watched the game, similar to the 48.3 million reported by iSpot, which suggests the differences between the two boil down largely to out-of-home measurement. ISpot, which gets data from millions of smart TVs and set-top boxes, also shows a considerably bigger household viewing number than Samba TV. Both iSpot and Nielsen report more than a 30% higher number of households watching than Samba. Besides a lot more households, more people in households watch the Super Bowl than other things. ISpot, which gets co-viewing data from TVision, in which it owns a minority stake, reported an average of around 2.1 people per household watched the Super Bowl this year, well up from the roughly 1.6 for the conference championship game, and the 1.1-1.3 that’s common for typical linear TV programming, according to agency and network executives. Nielsen didn't break out its co-viewing multiplier, but other numbers in its final report suggest its estimate was around 2.3 viewers per household. Related: The top 10 most liked Super Bowl ads The Farmer’s Dog wins—and loses One thing iSpot and Samba agree on is that the single most watched ad in the Super Bowl came from The Farmer’s Dog, which also was the most liked per USA Today’s Ad Meter. But while the story of a girl-turned-woman growing up with her dog warmed hearts and kept people watching, it did less well at getting them to pull out their phones or head for a computer to search about the brand, according to EDO, which tracks search response to TV ads. The Farmer’s Dog ad ranked only No. 63, about the middle of the pack of all ads in Fox Super Bowl coverage before, during and after the game. And it was below average for in-game ads. Search response is definitely important for a direct-to-consumer dog food brand spending eight figures to win new customers and with less brand awareness than its big rivals. Temu surprises on many levels Temu, on the other hand, was a huge success at search, even if its ad wasn't as well-loved or watched. The China-based e-retailer, which was a surprise big-spending entrant into the Big Game with four spots, including pre- and post-game inventory, was also a surprise hit in EDO’s search rankings. Temu’s two in-game ads ranked No. 4 and No. 8 in search response among Super Bowl ads, and its two post-game ads came in No. 15 and No. 20 among the more than 120 monitored by EDO. That’s a big deal for a retailer searching for awareness and new customers as it enters the U.S. market. The Flash beats Jesus Jesus also did well with the Super Bowl this year, with the “Love Your Enemies” spot from the “He Gets Us” campaign coming in second among all spots at generating search response per EDO, and the “Be Childlike” spot coming in a well-above-average No. 27. But no one beat “The Flash,” or more precisely the Super Bowl promo for the upcoming Warner Bros. film. ~ ~ ~CLARIFICATION: An iSpot.tv release and follow-up answers indicated that the 16.4 million average out-of-home viewers iSpot measured were in addition to the 118.2 million average minute audience, but actually, they were included in that number. Ad Age Leading Women and Rising Stars Last call for the annual awards Enter here

Super Bowl measurement—how Nielsen, iSpot and Samba numbers diverge

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