• by January 6, 2005

HERE'S A NEW ONE, EVEN FOR NIELSEN - The ratings meister seems to be running out of plausible excuses for explaining faults with its TV ratings system and has now turned its fangs on its own suppliers. This week, Nielsen disclosed a new kind of glitch that caused insufficient ratings data to be generated in 12 key Western media markets. Places like Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas. Even more perplexing is the fact that the fault occurred on New Year's Eve, a day when TV usage would seem to be higher than normal, especially when the big ball dropped. Maybe it was all the confetti that jammed the systems, but Nielsen attributed the problem to mistakes made by its hardware manufacturer.

"We have been working continuously with our hardware vendor since Dec. 31 to identify the problems, fix them and make sure procedures are in place so this does not happen again," Nielsen advised its clients this week.

At least one of those clients told the Riff he was not impressed by those efforts, or that explanation.

"What ought to be of most concern to Nielsen clients, other than the event and its impact, is the hint of excuse and blame. It appears that Nielsen would like 'to pin the tail' on its hardware supplier this time," said the network researcher, adding that is, "Not good! Although perhaps Nielsen was just in a generous holiday mood and was just seeking to share."

The "vendor" rationalization is significant for other reasons. It suggests that Nielsen is seeking to disavow responsibility for hardware it specked, bid out, ordered, installed and operated from its subcontractors. Ironically, that's the same argument used in the past by some of Nielsen's biggest clients, especially Six Sigma-minded General Electric, which prior to making nice and signing what it touted as the longest ever ratings contract with Nielsen - a seven-year deal - considered Nielsen's ratings to be a "defective" subcomponent for its NBC unit.

Yeah, most people think NBC makes TV shows, but the logic used by GE was that the network makes its money by selling gross rating points to advertisers, and a faulty ratings system was considered a defect in NBC's "manufacturing" process. At least this was the logic the senior most management of NBC and GE - all the way to then chairman Jack Welch - adhered to while they backed Statistical Research Inc.'s now defunct SMART TV ratings initiative.

Now, with no viable alternative in sight, GE apparently was willing to go deep into bed with Nielsen, signing what it called a "landmark" ratings deal in November 2004 for its NBC Universal unit.

By the way, we're still confused about that "landmark" status, or the claim that this is the longest Nielsen deal ever. We seem to recall similar language used by Nielsen to describe a deal negotiated by former Time Warner research czar Scott McDonald. In fact, we have that Oct. 28, 1998 press release right here, and it also describes that deal as "landmark" and has the same tenure - seven years - as the recent NBC deal. Oh well, it seems Nielsen can't count the number of years in its client contracts properly either.

I'D LIKE A VENTI SIZED DOSE OF GUERILLA MARKETING, PLEASE- The next time you see a cab in Boston, pay careful attention to what might be on the roof. An animated billboard? No. A Venti Starbucks coffee? Strange, but true. According to a Boston Herald article, Starbucks has placed magnetized coffee cups to the roofs of taxis. This campaign pulls at the Riff's heartstrings for its guerilla marketing creativity (the Riff is a sucker for clever uses of the outdoor medium), yet at the same time makes us wonder, "what were they thinking?"

The first thing we thought of was the number of speeding drivers that would see the cup on the roof and attempt to alert the driver of their error. There are many ways to pull off a safe and memorable guerilla campaign, but this was not one of them. Clear Channel Taxi Media created the campaign that, interestingly enough, had to win approval from Boston Police Department's licensing division. The division is usually conservative with its advertising policies but decided to "loosen up and see what the response is," according to a division spokesman. Wow. What a campaign to loosen up on. And that begs the question: Will they be counting fender benders along with eyeballs throughout the soon-to-be-phased-out campaign?