Nielsen Wins IAB Audience Measurement Tender

Nielsen has been appointed by the IAB as for digital audience measurement services in Australia starting.

The contract begins on January 1^st 2015 for a three year period and will see a comprehensive overhaul of the existing digital audience measurement system, with a number of significant improvements and enhancements around mobile audience measurement and improved reporting capabilities.

The IAB Technical Review Group, headed by independent chair Ian Muir, found that Nielsen was the preferred candidate by a significant margin, with their proposal providing the most accurate, robust and credible measurement data for Australian digital audiences and websites. A major factor in the choice of Nielsen was the proposal’s particular strengths in mobile measurement, one of the key criteria.

“After a long and rigorous process we are thrilled to finally announce Nielsen as our measurement provider,” said Alice Manners, CEO of IAB Australia. “Their appointment firmly places Australia at the forefront of digital audience measurement globally and will help IAB ensure our industry remains transparent and healthy in years to come.

“Our industry has experienced considerable growth in the last couple of years to reach 37 percent of total advertising expenditure this year and I have no doubt that this growth has been supported by the quality of digital audience measurement. With the rollout of the new system, I see this growth soaring with publishers able to report on their complete audience across all digital platforms and agencies being able to better understand how audiences are moving across these platform,” said Manners.

The announcement brings to a close the IAB’s seven month review process for a digital audience measurement solution to provide robust market data that accurately represents the ever changing digital media landscape. The Media Federation of Australia (MFA) and the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) were involved in and supportive of the process.

Several major service improvements will be delivered throughout the contract, including: the introduction of smartphone and tablet ratings in Q1 2015; cross-digital ratings for desktops, smartphones and tablets in July 2015; the introduction of daily ratings for digital content – including video – in early 2016; and additional reporting levels and increased network reporting to provide deeper and more granular local reporting and more flexibility across all aspects of reporting.

Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of IAB in the U.S commented: “Australia continues to be a leader in digital audience measurement. Now with this latest step, Australia builds on the strength of its early introduction of hybrid methodology combining large data sets and media quality panels. We look forward to watching further developments over the coming three years.”

Nielsen will work closely with IAB Australia’s Measurement Council to ensure it delivers the highest standard of measurement data for the digital advertising industry.

Monique Perry, head of Nielsen’s Media Industry Group in Australia, said: “The entire team here at Nielsen fought hard for this. We are committed to innovative product development, have a passionate client service team and strong technical support. We are ecstatic to be chosen.”

The IAB received 23 expressions of interest after announcing the request for proposals in April 2014, and pared the list down to four companies before shortlisting Nielsen and GfK after the contenders presented their proposals to a specialist technical review board in September.

The entire tender and review process was robust, extensive, rigorous and transparent and conducted with the upmost probity with TressCox Lawyers overseeing the process.

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