• by Wayne Friedman , March 19, 2012

GroupM and Nielsen say they will develop the long-sought-after holy grail of combining traditional TV and online metrics for individual media campaigns.

The new service, called Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings, builds on leverage for Nielsen's existing Online Campaign Ratings. It will provide reach and frequency of marketing campaigns that run on both TV and online -- as well as showing overlapping reach and frequency of their marketing campaigns.

GroupM, the WPP media management arm and Nielsen will each contribute resources and expertise to create Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings and make it available to GroupM clients.

Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings also offers reach, frequency and GRP measures for Internet advertising.

All this comes as TV programmers have been working on TV Everywhere efforts, which make programming available to subscribers both on TV and online.

“Our advertiser clients increasingly recognize that traditional television advertising and online video advertising must work together,” stated Rino Scanzoni, GroupM’s chief investment officer. “It’s vital that we have consistent measurement, and that’s our goal in working with Nielsen.”

Cross-platform metrics are essential to both buyers and sellers of advertising,” added Steve Hasker, president of Media Products and Advertiser Solutions for Nielsen. "Through working closely with GroupM and others in the industry we believe we can help create best practices that will benefit the entire ecosystem.”