What this all means for advertisers
IMC: What can you say about what else you hope to uncover or provide that's new?
Meyer: Some of our hopes include the first three priorities I've identified: expanding electronic measurement, providing metrics for the new advertising platforms and providing a deeper understanding of commercial activity. You might call this "cable system or satellite provider CRM." Essentially, we're combining our modeling expertise with granular viewing data from the set-top boxes to help cable and satellite providers know more about their clients. That's the nugget. The background is that we're trying to understand how people use digital video services.
For example, we're looking to develop new ways to merge DirecTV set-top box data with things like our existing "retail measurement data," which provides details on retail activity like how many tubes of Crest or how many cans of Campbell Soup are sold. Our objective is to learn how to do this most effectively, and to share what we learn with DirecTV to see if the company can make new and better business decisions based on what we can show it. It's very exciting. Potentially we could learn the different ways that people who buy certain products use their TVs.
Cable and satellite providers want to sell more subscriptions. They want to understand why people buy more and why people churn from satellite to cable and back. If this goes the way we think it will, we may be able to help them understand all that.
IMC: Why is the kind of work that DigitalPlus is doing important to advertisers?
Meyer: It's important because this is potentially a new way of measuring digital video audiences and providing insights on a very granular level of viewing activity. When we integrate this new data with the other Nielsen data sets, we create a whole new level of data on which to make business decisions.
Advertisers have been wanting to take the available research and put it into a usable format. What we're doing at DigitalPlus pulls all the data together by developing and highlighting these new insights via new reporting mechanisms. Unfortunately, it's too soon to offer a lot of specifics on our results, but this is what the trials are all about.
IMC: How will this help advertisers who are trying to improve or just to launch their integrated or interactive initiatives?
Meyer: Advertisers have been asking for this sort of data, and they are always looking for more accountability in the way their advertising dollars are placed. Our view is that the set-top box is one mechanism for adding to that accountability measure. All the reports we hope to generate, all our advancing electronic measurement of the new platforms, all of that will benefit the advertiser by giving them a deeper understanding of how their money is being placed and how consumers are reacting to their messages.
Robert Moskowitz is a consultant and author who speaks and writes frequently in the United States and abroad on such topics as white collar productivity, knowledge management, practical use of the internet, telecommuting, caring for aging parents and business applications of information technologies. Read full bio.