• by Tom Hespos , June 15, 2004

"[I]f you go ahead, we will do everything possible to discredit you and the company in Washington and legally, and we will start a competitor." - According to an article in The New York Times, what Susan Whiting, president and chief executive officer of Nielsen Media Research, said she was told by executives from News Corporation regarding Nielsen's plans to roll out local people meters in top markets. (According to the Times, News Corporation executives deny making this threat.)

After last week's announcement that Univision was suing Nielsen for unfair trade practices and trade libel stemming from Nielsen's launch of local people meters in Los Angeles, stories like the one I've linked to from the Times have shown us that we've got a full-scale revolt on our hands. No longer simply a business issue, the question of minority representation in Nielsen's market samples has led to a huge debate that has Democratic lobbyists and politicians - Hillary Rodham Clinton among them - fighting alongside executive management from News Corporation.

All comments about strange bedfellows aside, I find it ironic that this battle is being fought over market samples when there are alternative media that price themselves based on direct measurement of consumption. Of course, I'm referring to interactive here.

While sample-based measurement contributes to much of the audience research we rely on in interactive media planning and buying, it has yet to directly affect how interactive is priced. We still pay for online media on an impression-by-impression basis, defining impressions by a series of targeting filters and methods that we use to get our message to the right people. The determination of audience shortfalls or overdeliveries does not involve a third-party research firm in interactive. Impression-by-impression delivery gives us one advantage in that regard.

It looks like this fight between Nielsen and certain content publishers is about to get very ugly, departing from the usual battlefields of advertising trade-related venues and spilling over into the mainstream news media. Personally, I'm hoping that the battle is as ugly and public as possible, so that more marketers will understand the advantages direct measurement has over sample-based methodologies.

My partner Jim Meskauskas is fond of describing the web as "an embarrassment of niches." As the same nichification spreads through television media, can sample-based measurement hold up?

While the interactive industry has heard arguments for and against audience-based media currency, we're still married to impression-based pricing, for now. Have we stopped to think a bit about how this might be a competitive advantage in the current business environment?