VAB and Nielsen at Loggerheads Again Over New Data

In the US, the head of TV advertising trade group the VAB has written to Nielsen CEO David Kenny 'seeking the immediate cessation' of the firm's new 'Big Data' monthly impact releases. Nielsen says the VAB does not represent the overall video marketplace and has not raised the questions with it previously.

Sean Cunningham (pictured), President and CEO of the VAB (Video Advertising Bureau) says his organisation has identified 'three failures' with the data, which 'must be halted', and the letter 'notifies Nielsen of the information it must disclose in detail to the buy/sell ad marketplace before the data set can be considered as legitimate for eventual TV currency data use'.

Nielsen has said that the new measure will be offered for the time being alongside its existing and long-established data from the Television Panel of 40,000 homes, and that given the novelty of the Big Data system and the inevitable changes in some figures with any new system, ad buyers and sellers can compare and select from the two in making their commercial decisions - it calls this giving clients 'runway to adapt' to the launch.

The VAB, which helped fire major controversy for Nielsen a year ago by writing to Kenny about under-counting and lack of maintenance of panel homes during the pandemic, and shortly after launched a Measurement Innovation Task Force, says the publication of the two measures side by side with a 'large volume of inexplicable differences' between them will cause further confusion and requires Nielsen to make full disclosure about the methods used for the new data set, as well as how to compare it with the panel-based numbers.

Cunningham states in his letter: 'The VAB had high hopes for Big Data being a big leap forward in what Nielsen's measurement and currency can bring to marketers, but after in-depth analysis it's clear to us that this first data set is rife with serious problems'.

Nielsen's statement in reply states: 'Up until this letter was issued, we have not received questions from the VAB. In addition, a trade group associated with traditional TV channels is an incomplete and biased subset of the video marketplace. We prefer to work openly with the entire industry to get to the best measurement solution.'

Further commentary along with the first page of the letter can be viewed on the ever-excellent mediapost.com .

Web sites: www.thevab.com and www.nielsen.com .