Nielsen Confirmed for UK's Online Currency

UKOM, the UK online measurement body, has appointed Nielsen as its official partner to create the country's first currency for planning advertising campaigns on the Internet.

UKOM was set up in December 2008 to serve the needs of advertisers, media agencies and online media owners in planning online campaigns that target specific audiences, in the same way as they currently do with TV (BARB), radio (RAJAR) and print media (NRS). Talks with Nielsen were announced in May.

Due for launch next January, the UKOM Audience Planning System (APS) will supply UK online audience data for sites with at least 50,000 unique visitors a month, providing reach and frequency metrics based on behaviour of a panel of at least 35,000 consumers across home and work locations.

Guy Phillipson, CEO of the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and director of UKOM, says of the 'milestone' system: 'For the first time, advertisers and agencies will be able to confidently plan campaigns using industry-approved audience data comparable with traditional media, such as TV and press. Nielsen's original submission to be the supplier of this system was a close match to UKOM's exacting brief and we have worked closely with them, taking advice from all stakeholders, to hone the final specifications. I'm confident the UKOM Audience Planning System will transform the medium for brand advertisers.'

'We are delighted to help UKOM build the U.K.'s first industry-agreed online planning tool' says Nielsen Online CEO John Burbank, adding that the win 'demonstrates the marketplace's confidence and trust in the reliability, consistency and validity of our online media measurement'.

The IAB says the 2008 UK online display ad market was worth £637m, up 90% in three years but growing slower than search advertising (up 159%) and classifieds (up 173%): the new currency will address this relative lag by giving advertisers the confidence to commit more budget to display.

Nielsen now provides online currency services to 10 of the world's largest markets - the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, Switzerland, China and South Africa. It also acquired KoreanClick, the leading Web measurement company in South Korea, earlier this month.

Launch events and demonstrations will be run in October and November - details are on the UKOM web site at www.ukom.uk.net . Nielsen Online is at www.nielsen-online.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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