Commentary

Nielsen Product Leader: 'Don't Tase Me Bro'

by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, April 6, 2013

Given it’s monopolistic role as the industry’s currency, it’s not surprising that Nielsen executives often feel they are targets in their own right. But you normally don’t hear them talk about it publicly. But Chris Louie, vice president-product leadership at Nielsen, showed his sensitive side during the metrics panel at the VIdeo Insider Summit.

Citing a recent post by one of his clients describing the role of Nielsen in organizing the online video marketplace metrics, Louie quoted, “With great power comes great responsibility.” He said he didn’t know if the post was a reference to “Spiderman’s uncle, or Volaire,” but he gave his own quote for what Nielsen executives sometimes feel like during the process: “Don’t tase me bro.”

Marketing Behavior Institute’s Jim Spaeth came to Louie’s aid, noting that part of the problem isn’t with companies like Nielsen, but the culture of the industry itself.

Spaeth, a long-time marketing executive and former head of the Advertising Research Foundation, said the industry’s key stakeholders aren’t “always warm and receptive and willing to spend for innovation. And what we need right now is innovation.”

Spaeth then struck an interesting analogy, noting that, “If homo sapiens looked at the gorilla and said, ‘Yeah, they got it right, we’re going to be like them,’ we’d be living in caves.”

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