• Advertising Age, Thursday, August 7, 2008 10 AM

Marketers are under mounting pressure to find out which subset of the millions of ad viewers actually purchase their product. To help them Jon Mandel, CEO of the Nielsen Connect project, is trying to find common threads between Nielsen panelists and databases that examine consumer purchases. The research, uses a technique called "fusion."

Interest appears to be growing. Interpublic Group's Martin Agency and Crown Media Holdings' Hallmark Channel are looking for ways to use the Nielsen Connect service. Sony Pictures Television has used it to show the spending habits of its audience.

To extend its authority with strapped marketers and media outlets, Nielsen has no choice but to lace such behavioral data into its longstanding reach-and-frequency metrics.

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