The only thing consistent about the media industry is change. Media fragmentation is the new norm. People are constantly modifying what media they consume, how they consume it and when they consume it. Currency data is critical to understanding the engagement of these audiences through reach and frequency metrics to individual media types.
However, this has created a new challenge for marketers to get the best bang for their advertising buck. Without a complete view of the media experience by a person, marketers are stuck with individual media-type campaigns; each is a walled garden. But people don’t operate that way, they jump from device-to-device. There is hope for the advertiser: The advertising sales community understands that the marketer and their agencies need to see the total exposure of a campaign across all media purchased. The demand for an independent, deduplication of audiences is softening industry bodies to consider partnering together. It’s a team sport that the entire industry needs to get behind. For those who play, growth is on the horizon.
The latest research from Nielsen’s Q1 2019 Total Audience Report reveals that adults in the U.S. continue to increase their overall cross-media consumption and, with it, opportunities abound for businesses that have efficient strategies to capitalise on them at their most engaged. These consumers spend 11 hours and 27 minutes per day interacting with media across TV, TV-connected devices, radio, computers, smartphones and tablets—21 minutes of additional media exposure across all platforms from first-quarter 2018.
To build a future for our media industry, Nielsen is committed to innovating. We have built two critical frameworks to drive brand and sales lift for our clients.
1. A TOTAL AUDIENCE FRAMEWORK
The Nielsen Total Audience framework provides consistent, comparable metrics for content and ads that will bring a greater degree of transparency for the media ecosystem. We provide the industry with people-based metrics, so that content owners and marketers can better understand their audience. We measure reach in terms of age and gender, we measure the GRPs of their content and their ads, and we are able to show the total and de-duplicated audience by screen. These next-generation metrics provide content owners with the tools they need to better understand the true total audience of their content, and allows marketers to compare their options to put their ads in front of the right consumer, on the right platform, at the right time.
2. METRICS TO MONETISE
Developing great campaigns and content in today’s complex media market starts with understanding an audience: who they are, what they like and how they interact with content—everywhere. But the next evolution is to create a differentiated audience segment. We call this Metrics to Monetise. These could include media consumption data, along with demographic, behavioural, transactional, attitudinal and lifestyle-based segments. For instance, marketers may wish to establish an audience guarantee based on “allergy sufferers” or “avid hikers.”
Nielsen will not dictate what metrics the industry wishes to use to trade—that’s up to the industry to decide. However, we are here to enable it.
Today we know the media industry is evolving. We just don’t know where it’s going to land. One thing we know for certain however is that wherever it goes—Nielsen will remain right in the centre. We are laser-focused on empowering media companies and advertisers to plan, activate and measure their content and ads in the new media landscape.
By Matt O’Grady, Chief Commercial Officer, Nielsen International Media