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Historic Milestone For Australian Media Industry: Daily Digital Content Ratings Switched On

8 minute read | July 2017

     – 19 million Australians consume digital content daily- Digital video consumption over 25 hours per month for adults

Sydney, Australia – 25 July 2017: IAB Australia and Nielsen have today switched on Digital Content Ratings (DCR), providing publishers, agencies and marketers with daily digital audience data for the first time. The milestone places Australia once again at the forefront of global digital measurement.

Nielsen Digital Content Ratings provides the Australian media industry with a daily view of how many people consume content across all key digital devices and complements Nielsen’s existing Digital Ratings (Monthly) measurement solution.

Digital Content Ratings combines Nielsen’s digital device panels with census-based measurement to provide media buyers and owners with an independent, granular dataset delivering a daily view of how people engage with text, video and audio content across all key digital devices.

It also complements Nielsen’s existing Digital Ad Ratings measurement solution, ensuring consistency between the measurement of digital content and advertising performance – daily.

Digital Content Ratings is the third of three planned major upgrades to the digital audience measurement system in Australia.  Stage one saw IAB Australia and Nielsen release the market’s first view of Australians’ mobile and tablet audience data, while stage two delivered Digital Ratings (Monthly), giving the Australian market its first view of their total audiences, unduplicated, across key digital devices. This third stage provides daily audience reach data, enables reporting of large and small sites and allows digital publishers to add back their off-platform audiences for a comprehensive daily view of their content reach.

IAB CEO, Vijay Solanki said, “The Australian digital industry – which now accounts for half of all advertising spend – has always been world leading in the area of digital measurement. DCR is a game changer for the industry because it is daily, people-based and independent. It’s good for publishers and gives more precision to advertisers. It also helps create more transparency and more confidence for digital.”

Nicole Sheffield, Chairperson of IAB Australia and CDO, News Corp Australia said, “The daily trading metrics will enable publishers and agencies to pivot and take action during campaigns and respond to daily brief cycles. This brings digital in line with other media reporting daily ratings metrics. Importantly, DCR also measures ‘off-platform’ audiences, meaning for the first time as a publisher, I can attribute audiences consuming content off-platform to my overall unique audience number. No other media measurement system allows marketers to count people consuming content on third-party platforms, and also attribute people back to the content originator.”

Alex Smith, Nielsen’s Head of Digital Product, said “We set out to measure Australians and the way they engage with different content types across different devices. This has been a complex environment to measure but an incredible opportunity to deliver the first and only daily, independent, people-based digital measurement solution. We are delivering daily audience data for both big and small sites, including on and off platform which will see us support the diverse and vibrant publisher portfolio in Australia.”

Monique Perry, Head of Nielsen’s Media Industry Group said, “the roadmap to Digital Content Ratings was set out with the IAB in 2014, it was bold, ambitious and pioneering and while it took a little longer than we had planned, that’s because we have charted new territory, and it was critical to get right.

“Digital measurement is a team sport and Australia is truly a world-class team. The industry in this market is incredibly engaged and constantly scrutinising and challenging our digital audience measurement solution. This collaboration and team play is not found anywhere else, and the number of world firsts for Nielsen delivered out of the Australian market is unmatched and reflected by this industry collaboration and commitment. We have some of the best people in the world sitting here in this market. Every day our product and data science teams are innovating and building new technology solutions to best measure this complex and changing digital system. As a result, we now have a world-leading digital audience measurement solution, which the Australian industry should feel incredibly proud of,” explained Perry.

When asked what’s next for digital measurement, Solanki said “change”. “Digital is a diverse, incredibly complex and constantly changing content ecosystem. Content owners are refining their strategies, people are changing the way they consume digital media and technology is constantly evolving; so digital audience measurement must keep evolving too. And that’s exactly what we will do,” concluded Solanki.

Nielsen is the sole and exclusive preferred supplier of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) of Australia for the provision of digital audience measurement services in Australia and underpins Australia’s buying and selling of digital advertising.

INDUSTRY SUPPORT FOR NIELSEN DIGITAL CONTENT RATINGS

Sophie Madden, CEO Media Federation Australia“The MFA supports the continued drive to deliver day to day data and we appreciate the complexity and challenges involved in making this happen.  Our agency members eagerly anticipate seeing the first data that is released, covering Video, Audio and Text on all the major platforms of PC, Tablets and Smartphones.”

Alex Parsons, Nine’s Chief Digital and Marketing Officer“The move to daily ratings, in the form of Digital Content Ratings, represents an important milestone and is a clear sign of the increasing maturity of the Australian digital space,” said Alex Parsons, Nine’s Chief Digital and Marketing Officer.”

“With more demographic and visitation data, digital publishers will be more empowered than ever to better provide marketers and their agencies the data they require to make more informed choices about where they invest.”

Ed Harrison, CEO, Yahoo 7″DCR takes us over a critical threshold. The importance of getting a comprehensive view of our audiences both on and off our own platforms, and across all devices, cannot be understated. As an industry we should celebrate the fact that this puts Australia at the forefront of global audience measurement.”

Clive Dickens, Chief Digital Officer, Seven West Media”Digital Content Ratings responds to the constantly changing and increasingly complex online ecosystem. Daily data is a game changer, and we are very much looking forward to seeing the inclusion of ​Seven West Media’s video in the coming period to add further independent measurement of our digital assets.”

Anthony Saines, Managing Director – Commercial, Carsales.com”DCR is the most sophisticated digital measurement system in the world. Nielsen and the IAB should be applauded for their commitment to ensuring that Australia keeps up with the changing media consumption habits of consumers and the ever more complex digital ecosystem.

Carsales is looking forward to working with the additional insights that DCR generates. Having access to daily metrics will prove liberating as we should be able to nimbly respond to changing market dynamics and new trading opportunities. This is a great innovation for both the Buy and the Sell side.

So much of our traffic is now generated from non-desktop sources, it’s crucial that we get improved optics into the size and behaviour of this audience. DCR will give us this holistic view.”

For further information, contact:

Nielsen

Jackie HellikerT: + 61 403 074 864E: jackie.helliker@nielsen.com

IAB Australia

Pru Quinlan or Sue RalstonT: + 61 8905 0995E: pru@einsteinz.com.au or sue@einsteinz.com.au

ABOUT NIELSEN

Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) is a global performance management company that provides a comprehensive understanding of what consumers Watch and Buy. Nielsen’s Watch segment provides media and advertising clients with Total Audience measurement services across all devices where content — video, audio and text — is consumed. The Buy segment offers consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers the industry’s only global view of retail performance measurement. By integrating information from its Watch and Buy segments and other data sources, Nielsen provides its clients with both world-class measurement as well as analytics that help improve performance.  

Nielsen, an S&P 500 company, has operations in over 100 countries that cover more than 90 percent of the world’s population. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com

ABOUT THE INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING BUREAU

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Limited is the peak trade association for online advertising in Australia and was incorporated in July 2010. As one of over 43 IAB offices globally, and with a rapidly growing membership, IAB Australia’s principal objective is to support and enable the media and marketing industry to ensure that they thrive in the digital economy.

The role of the IAB is to work with its members and the broader advertising and marketing industry to assist marketers to identify how best to employ online as part of their marketing strategy, to better target and engage their customers and build their brands.

By addressing the core pillars of growth of the online advertising industry – simplified and standard online audience measurement, research, and online operational standards and guidelines, and regulatory affairs, IAB Australia leverages the skills, experience and commitment of its members to advocate the benefits of online advertising by acting as an authoritative and objective source for all online advertising issues whilst promoting industry-wide best practice.

IAB Australia is a registered not-for-profit organisation; membership fees and revenue generated is invested back into the IAB’s membership benefits such as resources, events, reporting, and industry representation.

For further information about IAB Australia please visit: www.iabaustralia.com.au