How Nielsen Is Shedding Old Perceptions, and Building New Businesses
I thought it might be interesting to check into the business model of Nielsen, a brand whose general reputation I have been only passingly familiar with, but always wanted to learn more. I had previously associated Nielsen as the brand behind the boxes that were attached to clunky cable set-top boxes to track people's viewing habits in the 1990s, but I find it interesting to see how much further the company is expanding their reach. Television in the era of "Big Data" is becoming a much more fractured, decentralized viewing environment. Nielsen's evolution of "Watch" into the new "Buy" marketplace segment has shown strategic vision in navigating this changing dynamic...
"Nielsen's evolution is twofold, encompassing both sides of the company's operations: "Watch" and "Buy." Watch is the better known of the two, tracking media consumption in 45 markets and covering 80 percent of media spend worldwide. Flying somewhat under the radar is Nielsen Buy, which provides market analysis, retail measurement and sales insights to the packaged-goods industry in 106 global markets, representing 90 percent of the world's GDP.
Some might be surprised to learn that Buy is larger than Watch, and that's been true for quite some time. In the first half of 2016, Buy revenue was $1.65 billion, up nearly 4 percent, while Watch tallied $1.44 billion, a 6 percent gain. (Total revenue in 2015 was $6.17 billion.)
Barns views the continued growth and, to an extent, the convergence of Watch and Buy as essential to Nielsen positioning itself as an indispensable corporate partner, helping marketers boost sales and setting a new industry standard for determining ratings and ad prices.
What's more, he foresees increased automation driving that process. "As we continue to leverage technology in a bigger way … we move much more to a data-as-a-service and software- as-a-service model," he says, much as Adobe evolved from selling software in a box to providing a cloud-based suite of tools and services. Nielsen's implementation of this concept is called Nielsen Marketing Cloud. Launched this past spring, it is based in large part on technology and expertise the company gained from last year's acquisition of eXelate.
Nielsen Marketing Cloud gives the company's clients faster access to data and analysis, which helps them make more informed marketing and media decisions. The system facilitates cross-channel planning by letting clients connect in real time to mobile, online, over-the-top TV, video, social and other platforms. It lets them analyze how advertising and content mold consumers' purchase decisions. That means advertisers can see which platforms or specific types of media are doing best with their target audiences at any given moment and shift ad dollars accordingly. "It takes different product capabilities, connects them all into this interoperable system," says Barns. 'It's off to a great start in the U.S., and we also, just in the summer, launched it in Europe.'..."
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