Moving forward this acquisition is a furtherance of Nielsen’s recent advancements in cross-platform advertising measurement.
Nielsen will incorporate Vizu’s ad measurement and optimization technology into its global operations immediately as Nielsen has been developing with media planning and buying company GroupM.
Expounding on the acquisition, the analytics firm said, “Through its Brand Effect suite, Nielsen will now deliver real-time reporting of online advertising performance broken out by media plan participant, frequency of ad exposure, advertising execution and targeting strategy,” Nielsen said in a statement to the market this morning.
Merging Nielsen product portfolio along with Vizu advertising technology will improve advertising efficiency by enabling in-flight optimization by advertisers and media companies. All of those are key to marketing online in the age of social media and real-time engagement.
Vizu technology delivers the same functionality employed to measure and optimize brand advertising effectiveness in the offline world to the online medium. This enables advertisers and publishers to assess and optimize online advertising effectiveness.
“Vizu has formulated a best-in-class solution for measuring and optimizing brand advertising effectiveness online, which offers a powerful complement to Nielsen’s cross-platform solutions for the advertising industry,” explained Steve Hasker, President, Global Media Products and Advertising Solutions, Nielsen.
“Nielsen is committed to cross-platform measurement and advertising solutions that delivers better understanding of the consumer and greater advertising efficiency. We are convinced that combining our advertising technology with Nielsen’s capabilities and expertise creates a stronger proposition for our clients and the industry,” added Dan Beltramo, CEO, Vizu.
Besides, Nielsen’s cross-platform campaign measurement service intends to help brands see how TV and online ads perform in concert, measuring total and overlapped reach and frequency of campaigns. Digital-only marketers who use Nielsen’s online campaign ratings could also see improved features as Vizu’s tools get plugged in.
As a matter of fact, Brand clients claim that the 11-month-old online ratings system works, according to Scott McKinley, evp of ad effectiveness at New York-based Nielsen. But they want to see even better results, and that is partly why his company pulled the trigger on Vizu.
“Every action we take, whether it is an acquisition or a partnership or an investment in a product, is driven directly from client feedback,” McKinley said. “This is very much motivated by a consistent and loud call from the advertising community to better understand online in the [marketing] mix.”
Vizu, based in San Francisco, has 60 employees and accompanies a formidable stable of clients, including Walmart, McDonald’s, Ford, Hilton, Warner Bros. and other brands.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Although prior to Neilsen’s acquisition, San Francisco-based Vizu had raised $10.7 million from investors including Draper Fisher Jurvetson, iNovia Capital, Greycroft Partners, Ron Conway, and Esther Dyson.