TV Ads: Measuring Viewer Engagement
TV networks and advertisers are augmenting Nielsen ratings with new so-called engagement metrics to determine prices for adsand their effectiveness
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For decades, ad agencies and broadcasters have negotiated prices based on the time-honored Nielsen ratings that measure whether TVs are tuned to a certain show. But as talks gear up about ad rates for next fall and winter, the so-called up-front season, more negotiations than ever will center on a new metric: engagement.
In recent years, advertisers like Procter & Gamble (PG), Toyota (TM), and Home Depot (HD) have struck a growing number of deals with broadcast and cable networks based on new tools that aim to measure how closely viewers are paying attention to the programs, not just whether a set is switched on.