• by Joe Mandese , September 2, 2005

The two leading electronic media ratings firms are reaching out to Madison Avenue in an effort to have the needs and perspectives of major marketers factored into the way they measure media audiences.

Last week, radio ratings giant Arbitron unveiled plans for a new Advertiser/Agency Advisory Council, and named 16 top agency researchers and representatives of two major advertisers to serve as charter members. The move comes after TV ratings supplier Nielsen Media Research formed its own advertiser council, which had its initial meeting Aug. 4 in Chicago.

During that meeting, ad executives identified several key areas of interest they'd like Nielsen to concentrate on, including:

* Project Apollo, the ambitious single-source media and marketing measurement system being tested by Nielsen parent VNU and Arbitron.
* A unanimous desire to focus on increasing return on investment.
* The importance of Nielsen directing energies toward new ratings technologies.

Nielsen said it plans to hold its next ad council meeting in November, but did not say where it would be held. Interestingly, Arbitron also announced plans to hold its first ad council meeting on Nov. 9 and 10 in Washington, D.C., and said the agenda would also include new ways of measuring multicultural and emerging markets, as well as methods for measuring "accountability and return on investment."

Separately, Nielsen told clients it has finalized a plan for studying "sub-minute ratings," something Madison Avenue has been requesting for a long time in the hope of better understanding audience flow around TV commercials versus TV programming. Nielsen said the plan--which would analyze differences in audience estimates between minute-level data and several sub-minute intervals--is completed, and was delivered to the ANA Subcommittee on TV measurement.

The Subcommittee is currently in the process of evaluating the data from the 30-second study that Nielsen delivered. Once this analysis is completed, they will decide if there is a need to pursue the evaluation of sub-minute ratings.

While Madison Avenue has always had an influential voice in media research circles, media companies have historically represented the vast majority of revenues for syndicated media ratings suppliers. The outreach by ratings companies is designed both to improve communication with the ad industry and to develop new products and services that could grow the revenues of syndicated research suppliers.

Nielsen has become a key cash-flow driver for parent VNU, which is in the process of making a huge acquisition--the purchase of health care marketing researcher IMS Health--and desperately needs to grow its revenue base through new products and services. Nielsen already has locked up most of its major clients--the major broadcast networks and multimedia conglomerates--in long-term contracts, so their revenue contributions appear to be maxed out, at least for the foreseeable future.