Nielsen, Adobe To Create Cross-Platform Ratings Service For Digital Content

The days of brands guessing how well their digital media is performing could soon be over. Nielsen and Adobe Systems have teamed up to release a cross-platform analytics service that will help brands measure digital content consumption.

Titled the Nielsen Digital Content Ratings, the service is set to launch in 2015 and will combine Nielsen’s digital audience measurement products with Adobe Analytics and the company’s online-TV platform Primetime. The unified service will collect digital content data from the web, apps, and Internet-connected devices like smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and set-top boxes. The Digital Content Ratings will be separate from the TV ratings system Nielsen is famous for, measuring content beyond just traditional television (including online video, games, audio, and text).

Megan Clarken, EVP of global product leadership at Nielsen, told Variety the Nielsen-Adobe partnership will mean the companies can “offer our customers a more seamless and efficient way to plan and deliver against their audiences.”

Nielsen and Adobe have already convinced a few major programmers to become early adopters of the digital ratings service, the biggest names being ESPN, Sony’s Crackle, Turner Broadcasting, Viacom, and Univision Communications. Many of these brands are hopeful the Digital Content Ratings service will shed better light on the way consumers access and view digital content.

“One of the challenges in digital measurement has been the lack of alignment between site analytics and syndicated measurement data, and we will be working with Nielsen and Adobe to help resolve this,” stated Artie Bulgrin, ESPN’s SVP of global research and analytics, to Variety.

If the Digital Content Ratings service does what it claims it will, media brands can rejoice that they’ll finally have a powerful way to accurately track their audience’s digital content viewing behaviors and monetize that viewership accordingly.