Standardized Metrics for Branded Integrations Will Help Media Owners, Marketers and Brands Capitalize on Additional Advertising Opportunities

Leading analytics and performance management company, Nielsen, has announced the launch of Nielsen Branded Integration Intel. Nielsen Branded Integration Intel is an innovative solution that seeks to standardize the way product and brand exposures are valued across screens and devices. While media owners, brand, and advertisers recognize that branded integrations are a valuable way to reach consumers, many have lacked the tools and understanding needed to accurately compare, measure and ultimately monetize their true value.

Using machine and human detection, Nielsen Branded Integration Intel captures and measures all aspects of integrations to understand the quality and impact of each exposure. 

Why Nielsen Launched the Branded Integration Intel for Advertisers?

At the time of this announcement, Renee Plato, SVP, Media Solutions and Innovation, Nielsen, said, “On-screen branded integrations represent a unique opportunity for media owners and marketers alike to cut through the clutter and we are seeing brands take advantage of this relatively untapped inventory.”

Renee added, “Last TV season we saw 611 different brands engaged in on-screen branded integrations, up from 574 during the 2013-14 season. Nielsen’s Branded Integration Intel offers media owners a monetizable revenue stream and gives brands a chance to reach their best consumer, build brand loyalty and drive ROI.”

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Nielsen’s Branded Integration Intel is Essential for Brand Placements across Advertising Channels

By introducing the industry’s first standardized metrics, Nielsen’s Branded Integration Intel—which will capture, measure and, finally evaluates these brand exposures—will enable networks and marketers to effectively research within an ecosystem that provides qualitative, apples-to-apples comparisons across devices, integration and content over linear TV, subscription-based video on demand (SVOD) and short-form video.

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The solution will also allow the industry to uncover insights into how these campaigns compare to that of media exposure via traditional TV advertising—an over $61 billion business during the last full TV season.

Specifically, Nielsen’s Branded Integration Intel solution will analyze every exposure to understand quality, including such factors as size, location, duration, brand hits, and impact. It will then evaluate and “score” the resonance of the exposures as a way to value these exposure(s) at both individual and aggregate levels. For instance, Nielsen’s Branded Integration Intel will determine the marketing impact if a cast member of a sitcom sips a popular soft-drink with only a partial logo visible on the bottle and appropriately score this impact alongside an integration of an automobile in the background of a scene from a streaming series.

Matthew Williams, Global Head of Creative Impact for YouTube, said, “We worked with Nielsen and a leading global agency to develop YouTube-specific integration scoring using Nielsen’s Branded Integration Intel solution. This allowed us for the first time to quantitatively assess the value of brand placements for YouTube creators and brands.”

Matthew added, “We scored hundreds of videos across a range of product categories, finding that brand integrations with YouTube creators drive lifts in brand familiarity, brand affinity, and purchase intent.”

Marie Clayton, Global Strategy, Carat, said, “Influencer marketing can be very powerful but it is not paid media or even earned media as we know it. Subsequently, it requires a different set of rules. Through our exclusive partnership with YouTube, we leveraged Nielsen Branded Integration Intel for a study that was specifically designed as the first of its kind to analyze in detail hundreds of brand and creator videos in the US and the UK in order to understand in more detail the impact of Influencers for brands.”

Marie added, “The findings from this research represent a critical first step in establishing a business-led rulebook for this new world and provides the beginnings of building a strategic approach to unlocking the power of Influencers for our clients.”

Currently, Nielsen also offers its Watch segment that their provides media and advertising clients with Nielsen Total Audience measurement services for all devices on which 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 also provides its clients with analytics that help improve performance.