Barc India partners Nielsen for digital measurement

New Delhi: TV ratings and viewership monitoring agency, Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc) India, on Tuesday appointed consumer analytics firm Nielsen India as its primary digital measurement partner. Nielsen will integrate its global experience with India-specific adaptations to meet unique needs of the Indian market, Barc said in a statement.

Simply put, Nielsen will be the technology partner for Barc India’s digital measurement. Just like in the case of TV, where Barc India uses different vendors to provide different solutions for TV measurement, Nielsen will provide Barc India, the technology solution for digital measurement.

Barc kick started the process of identifying a digital measurement provider last year.

“After a rigorous proof of concept (POC) testing was conducted with 3 shortlisted companies across 3-6 months following which Nielsen was selected on the strength of its demonstrated capabilities. Barc India’s digital products will be powered by Nielsen, which will help integrate the TV and Digital service eventually,” Barc India said in a statement. Proof of Concept is testing the product in a controlled environment.

The first product to be launched after the integration with Nielsen is EKAM Pulse. Pulse, which will measure video advertising campaigns to enable daily evaluation and optimization opportunities on more impactful return on investment(ROI)metrics, is likely to be launched by the end of the year.

Steve Hasker, Global President and Chief Operating Officer, Nielsen said, most Indians who are getting online today, are using a mobile device to do so and, 92% of the smartphone users are using video streaming services. “These consumers will drive digital ad spends of marketers in India, likely to get close to Rs30,000 crore by 2020. Measuring this explosion and building a currency around this to understand the reach and ROI of the marketer’s most important future spend is an imperative. Barc India and Nielsen are on this journey, together,” he added.

EKAM will include a range of digital products which will measure video advertisement campaigns, linear broadcast viewed on a digital device and non-linear and pure play digital video content under the brand names EKAM Pulse, EKAM Beam and EKAM Stream, respectively. Two other products are EKAM Ad-Scan, which will look at an overview of digital advertising across the country including where the advertising money is being spent, and EKAM Integra, which will provide common audience numbers (including television and digital video data).

Partho Dasgupta, CEO, BARC India said it was imperative to move to a third party system. “With large expected growth in digital as well as increased local and global industry demand for robust TV+Digital measurement, it becomes essential that the country moves to a cohesive third party measurement system. With lack of common trusted and transactable Digital metrics, publishers and agencies use differently defined metrics and measures of success of the ad or content being placed on the platform. There is a need for uniformity where all sides of industry are in agreement on the right metrics, measures and definitions. Digital measurement methods are still evolving globally and BARC India is attempting a few things which are a global first,” Dasgupta said while explaining the partnership with Nielsen.

In April, Barc had announced the phased roll-out of its digital measurement service which will map video advertisements and content across platforms under the brand name EKAM (Sanskrit for ‘one’).

The move is likely to benefit companies that operate in the digital sector bargain for better advertising rates on their platforms backed by a credible measurement system.

In June 2016, Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), the non-profit body for measuring and auditing newspaper and magazine circulation, also forayed into digital measurement, backed by market research firm Nielsen to provide end-to-end measurement across devices.