Nielsen: Total Audience Measurement Coming This Year

Total audience measurement is coming—and soon. That was Nielsen's mantra during the company's "Measuring the Total Audience" seminar Monday at Advertising Week, reports AdWeek.

"By the end of this year, we'll have most of these pieces in place," said Steve Hasker, Nielsen's global president, referring to the firm's total audience measurement, which he said will provide a total audience read across all linear and digital platforms daily. The new data, he added, will give advertisers, buyers and networks "the ammunition to move beyond C3 and C7" when it comes to advertising metrics.

Steve Hasker

Nielsen's total audience measurement is "trying to create a level playing field between television and digital video," with "like-for-like metrics," said Lynda Clarizio, president of U.S. media for Nielsen.

But, reports AdWeek, of all consumers, millennials remain the most difficult of all audiences for advertisers to reach.

"They are less prepared to spend money" and "most resistant to interruption [by] advertising," said Hasker. As a result, "there is going to have to be significant innovation" to get them to pay for what they love, and consume advertising.

Randall Beard

Yet while millennials are most resistant to advertisers, they are also, oddly, among the most trusting of advertising, according to the results of Nielsen's bi-annual Global Trust in Advertising report.

Randall Beard, president of Nielsen's Expended Verticals, said trust in advertising has remained steady for several years, with "earned" media (shared by friends) and "owned" media (websites and social media channels) the most trusted by consumers, followed by paid media (advertising). That order held firm in all 60 countries where Nielsen conducted the online survey.

Overall, consumers have more trust in advertising across traditional media like TV (63 percent), newspapers (60 percent) and magazines (58 percent) than across digital media like online video ads (48 percent), search engine ads (47 percent) and social network ads (42 percent). But millennials trust both new and traditional forms of advertising, with the highest levels in nearly all formats.