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Leading Internet search company Google today announced a partnership with media firm The Neilsen  Company which will further expand the search leader's reach beyond the Web. The strategic relationship between the two companies will allow Google to incorporate television ratings and demographic information into its Google TV Ads™ network for managing national advertising campaigns. Using data collected from television set-top boxes, Google can already provide up to the second information on which ads are being watched in their entirety and which are being skipped over, and will now be able to add Nielsen's viewer information to offer more valuable feedback for advertisers. Google seems determined to do what it can to dominate television advertising the way it has with online ads. A New Relationship Today the two companies announced that they are entering into a mutually beneficial relationship aiming to provide advertisers more information than ever before about television commercials and who is watching them. It is the first announcement of a multi-year collaborative agreement. The initiative announced today will begin allowing Google to take ratings information it has gathered since May from set-top boxes accessing 125 national satellite channels available through the EchoStar Communications DISH Network, and  add it to Nielsen's demographic information, however both companies see their relationship as one which will grow over the coming years. Google's director for television ads Michael Steib commented recently about improving television's advertising system. "We want to bring all the advantages that we see in online advertising — like more accountability, a better sense of the audience,  better tools to optimize a campaign — and bring them to television to make TV advertising more effective," Steib said in a recent New York Times article. The partnership will not only help Google in the television advertising market, but will eventually serve to expand Nielsen's reach online and in other media such as the mobile and portable device markets. Nielsen hopes to use its proven measurement techniques to gain market share within the online market. According to today's announcement Google will pay Nielsen an undisclosed amount of money for the demographic information about television audiences. The New Technology Faced with increased usage of digital video recording devices of all sorts, television advertisers appear eager to use the type of extra information Google will be able to provide by partnering with Nielsen, which should show who is watching ads in their entirety, who is turning away, and at what point they are doing so. For the past six months Google has been selling a few minutes worth of local ads each hour on satellite TV giant EchoStars' DISH Network through their Google TV Ads™ auction based system, which determines with to the second accuracy which ads are being seen and which are being skipped. New York City-based Nielsen has recently launched a system to rate groups of advertisements, and results so far appear to show that certain people, especially those using DVR systems, are skipping over ads. Although this information is delivered more quickly than systems in the past, even the two week turnaround of Nielsen's recent system isn't fast enough to provide the type of nearly instant feedback the newly announced partnership will. The new system will have another large advantage over previous methods in that it is able to provide exact information on a per-advertisement basis. Many television advertisers have lamented the lack of data available to them after rolling out an ad campaign. "When I’m buying for network or cable, I get an estimate of what the cost per million will be. Then the ad runs, and that’s it. I get very little data back," Buy.com's vice president for marketing Jeff Wisot told The New York Times. With the addition of Nielsen's demographic information, Google is now able to provide advertisers detailed information about the performance of particular ads within 24 hours, all in an easy to use Web environment that is a part of Google's popular AdWords system.  Google hopes to apply the techniques which have proven so successful in its online AdSense and AdWords Web advertising programs to the television ad marketplace, ultimately through the delivery of ads precisely targeted at the type of viewer watching a specific television program. Mike Stieb, director of Google TV Ads™ explained the partnership announced today in terms of relevance to both television viewers and advertisers. "We see this as a major next step. We want to help make TV advertising more effective and more relevant for viewers and for advertisers," Stieb said in a recent Media Daily News article. Google is also working with the "top 10 advertisers in television," according to Steib. About The Nielsen Company The Nielson Company has for many years been a well known and influential provider of television viewership and demographic information, however as a global information and media company it also owns other additional brands, including: - ACNielsen marketing information
- Nielsen Media Research media information
- Nielsen Online Internet intelligence
- Nielsen Mobile mobile media
- Adweek, Billboard, and The Hollywood Reporter trade shows and publications
Nielson's demographic information has for many years provided personal data showing such television viewer data as: - Ages
- Genders
- Marital status
David Calhoun, Chairman and CEO of The Nielsen Company sees the partnership with Google as a good fit. "This is an important, strategic relationship for both companies and a great fit," Calhoun said. "We are pleased that Google looked to Nielsen to provide the demographic data that is so critical to the clients of its TV advertising platform. The relationship with Google - which we expect will expand significantly in the months ahead - is a prime example of the ways Nielsen is embracing new technologies, platforms and relationships worldwide to serve clients more completely, to provide companies with its insights and to help expand the base of potential advertisers everywhere," he said. Google Existing TV Ads™ System Google's TV Ads™ system is an online platform that allows advertisers to buy, sell,  upload, measure and deliver advertisements to participating television distributors. The scope of Google's existing audience may be a relatively small 14 million or so right now, with about 13.5 million DISH Network subscribers and 197,000 households through San Francisco area digital cable operator Astound Broadband, however by having the leading search company valued at over $210 billion involved, there can be little doubt today's announcement may signal a serious move intended to gain additional audience numbers. Presently both EchoStar and Astound provide their set-top information to Google as part of a licensing agreement. As the deal is still officially in the beta testing phase, a limited number of advertisers are able to take part, however Google is planning to make the new service available to all television distribution companies. Google's TV Ad Deal with The Nielsen Company Google is expanding rapidly from Internet search and advertising into television, print and radio. As SearchEngineWorld wrote about recently, Google has applied for several U.S. patents relating to television and radio audience measurement techniques, including the use of devices containing microphones and video cameras in consumer's homes. Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer at Google, appears pleased with the partnership. "As we continue to expand our TV advertising program, it is important that we provide advertisers and agencies with data that will help them reach their target demographic with the right ad. Working closely with Nielsen, the industry leader, improves our measurement capabilities by adding a demographic layer on top of existing set-top box data. We're pleased that Nielsen is working with us in this endeavor," said Schmidt.
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10:28 pm on Oct. 24, 2007 (utc 0)