• by Joe Mandese , September 11, 2003

It's well known that Nielsen ratings influence advertising buys. Now Nielsen plans to use advertising to influence its TV ratings.

In an ironic twist, Nielsen Media Research this week began informing clients it will test a series of ad campaigns intended to boost cooperation from people it wants to recruit for its TV ratings panel, especially Hispanics, African American and young adult segments that are more difficult to recruit through conventional means.

The campaign, which breaks in local Chicago newspapers and the Chicago regional editions of national magazines such as Sports Illustrated, People, Time and Newsweek, was created by multicultural agency WING Latino. It is built around eye-catching print and outdoor ads carrying the theme: "What do you see? No matter what you see, tell us what you watch." General market media buys were placed by MediaCom, which has an affiliation with WING Latino.

The multicultural shop and the Chicago test market were picked because Nielsen has had a particularly difficult time recruiting Hispanics into its sample and has actually had to develop plans to weight its sample help bring Spanish-speaking viewers into balance with U.S. population estimates. Chicago is a strong Hispanic market and also has a good representation of Hispanics from different regions.

As plans for the ad campaign developed Nielsen executives realized Chicago also was scheduled to be converted to a people meter market and decided to expand the media strategy to include African American publications, as well as alternative newsweeklies and other publications that would reach young adult viewers, both of which have also been weak cooperators.

Nielsen senior VP-communications Jack Loftus would not specify the media budget for the campaign, but said it was, "Small. Well under a million dollars. Less than half of that."

But if results of the campaign prove successful, he said the effort would be rolled out to other key markets where Nielsen has been having sample cooperation problems.

The campaign intentionally does not include TV or radio, which Nielsen research executives felt might cause or could be seen as causing biases that could influence its measurement of TV viewers.

The success of the campaign will be measured by two criteria: Does it generate increased awareness of Nielsen among prospective panelists; and does that awareness lead to greater cooperation rates.

"What we don't know yet is whether increased awareness will mean people are more willing to accept a meter in their homes," says Nielsen's Loftus.