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Leading Agencies, Advertisers, Media Companies, Ad Networks Adopt Nielsen Mobile Ad Measurement

11 minute read | July 2014

Clients Include DigitasLBi and GroupM; Adap.tv, AdColony, BrightRoll, Collective, Defy Media, Drawbridge, Evolve Media, Freewheel, Innovid, LiveRail, Lotame, Rhythm NewMedia, Rocket Fuel, Torrential, Tremor Video, TubeMogul, Twitch, Vdopia, Verve, Videology and YuMe

Launch of Industry’s First and Only Comprehensive In-App Mobile Ad Measurement Sets the Stage for Inclusion of Mobile in TV Ratings

New York — July 15, 2014 — Nielsen today announced that the commercial availability of mobile measurement in Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings has been met with significant client adoption—including industry leading agencies, advertisers, media companies, ad networks and platforms. The recent launch positions Nielsen’s marquee digital measurement offering as the only robust solution available today that provides a campaign’s full digital audience—across computers, tablets and smartphones.

Adoption of the expanded Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings has been considerable, with dozens of media sellers opting in to measure mobile on their sites, apps and networks. These include Adap.tv, AdColony, BrightRoll, Collective, Defy Media, Drawbridge, Evolve Media, Freewheel, Innovid, LiveRail, Lotame, Rhythm NewMedia, Rocket Fuel, Torrential, Tremor Video, TubeMogul, Twitch, Vdopia, Verve, Videology and YuMe.

“The response to our mobile launch has been incredible, with existing Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings clients clamoring for it and a slew of new clients coming on board for the opportunity to understand reach in the dynamic mobile environment for the first time,” said Lynda Clarizio, President, U.S. Media, Nielsen. “With this adoption, the enhanced Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings stands to transform the mobile advertising industry—bringing the confident investment and accountability that only third-party, comprehensive metrics can deliver.”

The availability of comprehensive smartphone and tablet measurement in Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings provides clients with a complete view of their digital audience for the first time. Nielsen not only provides highly precise demographics on a campaign running across platforms, but will also provide an accurate count of how many consumers saw an ad only on a PC, only on mobile and on both—for total and device-specific reach. Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings, which offers a holistic view of ads across TV and digital, has also been augmented to include mobile measurement.

The expansion of Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings to mobile device apps and browsers measures all ads, including video and display, for iOS and Android platforms. Mobile measurement in Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings builds on Nielsen’s Media Rating Council-accredited methodology* for measuring ads in computer browsers. The solution leverages Nielsen’s proprietary mobile software development kit (SDK), which forms the foundation for the inclusion of mobile measurement into TV ratings later this year.

“Our goal is to measure audiences wherever and however they might access content. The launch of mobile in Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings paves the way for the debut of Digital Program Ratings and the inclusion of mobile measurement in TV ratings later this year,” said Megan Clarken, EVP, Global Product Leadership, Nielsen. “This reinforces our leadership position as the only provider of industry standard-setting cross-platform measurement.”

Note

*Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings is the first Internet measurement system that provides demographic ratings for online advertising campaigns of any size with certain metrics comparable to those used for TV advertising to be accredited by the MRC.

Industry support for the enhanced Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings

DigitasLBi: “Mobile has become a key component of every media strategy developed at DigitasLBi; it’s therefore critical to gain a line of sight into how mobile plans are being delivered by our partners, consistent with our other digital plans. Having mobile in Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings will help us ensure that we are reaching the right people, at the right time, on the right platform,” said Pedro M. Perez, Senior Vice President, Strategy & Analysis at DigitasLBi.

GroupM: “Adding mobile measurement to Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings and Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings is an important move to being able to fully understand a consumer’s exposure to video advertising,” said Lyle Schwartz, managing partner and director of research and marketplace analysis at GroupM Worldwide.

Adap.tv: “As TV and digital have continued to come closer together, AOL and Nielsen have worked together on a number of initiatives to move towards the reality of a standard cross-screen measurement, most recently a beta program bringing TV-comparable audience measurement to all of AOL’s new series,” said Henk van Niekerk, Senior Vice President, Publishers and Ad Networks at Adap.tv, a division of AOL Platforms. “The expansion of Nielsen Campaign Ratings to mobile devices is another key step towards bringing greater measurement parity to advertising, regardless of which digital screen it is viewed on.”

AdColony: “Mobile in Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings is a big step in the right direction for mobile video, and we believe it can unlock future mobile spending in ways that complement TV,” said David Kurtz, Chief Product Officer. “As media companies extend their content across mobile devices, brands are seeking out ways to buy high-quality mobile video advertising in streamlined, dependable and easy-to-measure ways. The launch of mobile in Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings adds the ability to provide clients with the additional audience validation they want, allowing them to optimize and measure according to familiar TV metrics.”

BrightRoll: “Brands are increasingly embracing the power of mobile in their marketing strategy and as such are seeking ways to validate the efficiency of their campaigns across smartphones and tablets,” said Tim Avila, SVP of Marketing Operations, BrightRoll. “We are proud to be among the first video advertising platforms to integrate and provide mobile audience measurement through the enhanced Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings product to our clients.” 

Collective: “The integration of mobile measurement into Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings helps close the gaps between delivery and measurement, and between TV, PC and mobile. It provides a consistent mechanism for validating our core principle of reaching audiences across screens. The combination of our capabilities with Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings and Nielsen’s other measurement solutions now enables an end-to-end unified view of audiences and audience-based advertising like never before,” said Justin Evans, Chief Strategy Officer, Collective.

Drawbridge: “Our agency and advertiser clients depend on Drawbridge to not only optimize their cross-device ad campaigns for the highest return on ad spend, but to show them detailed reporting on campaign impact, including brand lift, engagement and other metrics,” said Drawbridge VP Marketing Daryl McNutt. “The Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings mob offering is a major step forward that will enhance our mobile and cross-device measurement solutions, and we know our clients will be excited to learn that we’re working with Nielsen as an early adopter of this solution.”

Evolve Media: “Evolve Media experienced great success by becoming the first publisher to integrate Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings reporting for native video campaigns, so it was a natural progression for us to take this technology to the second screen. We know there is a demand for mobile campaign measurement within the industry, and we’re looking forward to integrating the technology within our premium mobile campaigns,” said Fabien Ricard, Vice President of Operations, SpringBoard Video – an Evolve Media company.

FreeWheel: “As the digital television landscape continues to span platforms and devices, the need for solutions that bridge the gap between online and offline becomes even more critical,” said James Rothwell, Vice President, Business Development, FreeWheel. “Including smartphones and tablets in Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings is a significant step towards creating a unified television advertising market for our customers and the industry as a whole.”

Innovid: “With ever-growing screen fragmentation, we see more and more marketers and agencies thinking about the ‘audience’ and recognizing the need to break down video device silos. One big missing piece to fully living that dream was understanding the audience composition and overlap between platforms. Adding mobile to Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings solves that, and we believe this to be a massive catalyst for cross-screen campaigns coming down the pipe,” said Tal Chalozin, CTO and co-founder.

Rhythm NewMedia: “Despite annual increases in overall mobile ad spend, many brand marketers are still reluctant to fully leverage mobile advertising at scale in their media buys. The audience measurement tools traditional used for desktop media simply don’t work in the cookie-less, app-based world of mobile”, said Josh Stivers, VP of Ad Solutions at Rhythm. “Thankfully, Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings has cracked the code of mobile audience measurement and validation. We’re looking forward to onboarding all our advertisers over time.”

Rocket Fuel: “Rocket Fuel is committed to delivering optimal audiences across all screens and increasing media effectiveness across TV and digital,” said Simon Hayhurst, SVP Product and Business Development. “We’re delighted to be at the forefront of providing audience verification for mobile devices to help our brand buyers spend with confidence across all digital touch points.”

Torrential: “Mobile video is exploding, essentially putting a personal, always-on smart TV in every brand consumer’s hand,” said Doug McCurdy, President and Co-Founder, Torrential.  “We’re thrilled to be a launch participant.  With this expansion of Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings to mobile, we can now provide our ad agency and brand clients the standard, cross-platform audience measurement metrics they require to invest in mobile video at scale.”   

Tremor Video: “We’re laser-focused on offering our clients the ability to optimize across all-screens, regardless of whether their goal relates to brand performance or demographics,” said Katie Seitz Evans, VP of Strategy and Operations at Tremor Video. “This release of mobile Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings will now allow our clients to measure and optimize to key demographics across devices.”

TubeMogul: “The second screen is rapidly becoming the first screen in video, especially for younger viewers,” comments Keith Eadie, Chief Marketing Officer at TubeMogul. “Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings for mobile is what was missing, bringing accountability to mobile video through accurate, third-party measurement. Thanks to Nielsen, marketers using TubeMogul’s software can now seamlessly plan across every screen, comparing TV to video everywhere in terms of cost and reach.”

Twitch: “Mobile is an increasingly important piece of the pie for any company in the digital media space,” said Jonathan Simpson-Bint, Chief Revenue Officer, Twitch. “At Twitch, we’re seeing around 30% of our views come from mobile devices, and it’s more important than ever for our advertisers to have a comprehensive understanding of the ways the Twitch audience is interacting with their brand messages. This helps them get a complete picture for both Web and mobile.” 

Vdopia Inc.: “The introduction of TV-like ‘standardized ratings’ for mobile will open the floodgates for mobile video advertising. This will provide marketers with the confidence to go cross screen, and it will give mobile publishers and ad-tech players credibility for delivering measurable audience reach. Vdopia welcomes this move by Nielsen and is excited to be part of the launch,” said Saurabh Bhatia, Co-founder, Chief Business officer, Vdopia Inc.

Verve: “We’re very excited to leverage Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings as part of Verve’s ongoing efforts to ensure we are the mobile location advertising leader in providing our clients transparency, accountability and verification,” said James Smith, Chief Revenue Officer of Verve. “Verve’s location intelligent platform combined with Nielsen’s audience insight will deliver crucial advertising effectiveness information and therefore more value for advertisers.”

Videology: “As television and video continue to converge, the ability for advertisers to plan and buy holistically across devices has become an imperative. And unified buying hinges upon unified measurement metrics,” said Scott Ferber, Chairman and CEO, Videology. “Nielsen propelled the industry forward by introducing common ratings across TV and online video, and we believe extending these ratings to mobile is an equally important advancement. We are eager to offer this new solution to our platform clients.”

YuMe: “As YuMe is focused on providing digital video for brand advertisers, as well as measurement solutions across all screens, we applaud the launch of Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings for mobile,” said Jayant Kadambi, Co-Founder and CEO of YuMe. “By now supporting and validating mobile audience composition, Nielsen takes a major step forward for the industry.”

The clients named above are among those who are ready to measure mobile advertising through Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings or actively engaged in the certification process.

ABOUT NIELSEN CAMPAIGN RATINGS

Nielsen Campaign Ratings delivers clients comprehensive, comparable metrics for TV and digital advertising campaigns. Part of the Nielsen Campaign Ratings product suite, Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings combines Nielsen panel data with aggregated, anonymous, privacy-protected demographic information from participating data providers. Campaign reporting is available daily, providing vital delivery information in-flight to both advertisers and publishers. Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings, also part of the suite, draws upon Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings as well as Nielsen’s proprietary TV data to deliver unduplicated and incremental reach, frequency and GRP measures for TV and digital advertising.

ABOUT NIELSEN

Nielsen (NYSE: NLSN) is a global information and measurement company with leading market positions in marketing and consumer information, television and other media measurement, online intelligence and mobile measurement. Nielsen has a presence in approximately 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA, and Diemen, the Netherlands. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com.

CONTACT:

Julia Monti; 646.654.4412; julia.monti@nielsen.com