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Nielsen Measurement Brings Marketers to Video Games

Now that Nielsen Interactive Entertainment is providing marketers with metrics measuring the impact of product placement on video games--albeit only on a case-by-case basis--marketers are lining up to buy, Business Week reports. Several big-name brands, such as McDonald's, Coca-Cola and Nike, have been putting their products in games for several years now, but last year Nielsen added measurement where there had been none before, which the ratings company expects will kick-start the $79 million industry to more than $1 billion by 2010. As we know, there is no ad industry where there's no objective measurement, so Nielsen's entry into the space is welcome and perhaps a little overdue. Perhaps no one will be more excited about this than game publishers, who desperately need the added revenue stream as video game production costs rise and the price of games stays the same. The next step for Nielsen, of course, will be standardizing ad units and impressions; the company plans to offer universal measurement metrics for the entire game industry--although the expected delay of the PlayStation 3 will likely scale back Nielsen's plans to late next year. 

 

 

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