An annual survey from Advertiser Perceptions finds that there’s an appetite for alternative TV measurement currencies among advertisers and agencies.
That said, Nielsen remains the dominant player in the space — and a previously expected shift to new currencies in the last upfront didn’t happen, according to Ad Age, which reported on Advertiser Perceptions’ findings.
Nielsen declined to comment on the survey.
The survey finds two-thirds of advertisers agreed that a multi-currency marketplace is the future, but it’s not quite that simple: advertisers also believe the industry should agree on a limited set of currencies, ideally no more than five.
Among agency and marketer respondents, 46% in the latest survey are “very familiar” with new TV currencies. In 2022, it was 29%.
“The survey, part of a syndicated offering by Advertiser Perceptions and not commissioned by any measurement company, comes as the market faces a sort of forced adoption of one new currency — VideoAmp,” Ad Age says in the article. “A contract showdown between Paramount and Nielsen is entering its second month, leading Paramount to no longer price deals using Nielsen data.”
In the approximately $80 billion U.S. TV market, VideoAmp — previously the currency for less than 3% of the market — will unmistakably see its profile rise now that Paramount’s contract with Nielsen has expired. Paramount, which represents almost 17% of ad-supported linear and connected TV inventory, has transacted primarily with VideoAmp since its Nielsen deal ended Sept. 30.
About three in five Advertiser Perceptions survey respondents already said they’ve used alternative currencies for TV transactions in the past 12 months — and most found the results acceptable.
Overall, nearly half (49%) said alternative currencies were just as effective as Nielsen; 36% said they were more effective; and 15% said they were less effective.
“The survey also found that 68% of respondents identified performance concerns as the biggest obstacle to alternative currency adoption — led by a lack of historical data or benchmarks and lack of standardization of terms or metrics among providers,” Ad Age says. “Marketer respondents were slightly more likely than agency respondents to identify performance concerns with alternative currencies.”
The Advertiser Perceptions survey was fielded July 22-31 among 200 marketer and agency respondents.