ESPN Monday became the first client to sign on to Nielsen's new market-research tool, NPOWER, which links ratings to various data including income, race, education, occupation and even where they vacation and what kind of cars they drive.
Advertisers have been looking for better ways to tie ratings performance to consumer buying habits, which is what Nielsen wants to do with the new "consumer-segmentation" feature that creates and rates categories of potential consumers -- say the “Bohemian Mix” of "young singles and couples" or the “Blue Blood Estates” group of six-figure professionals.
Also Monday, Nielsen launched a Web-based commercial tracking system, appropriately named “Keeping Trac," that will allow advertisers to monitor whether their spots have aired when and where they should have on a daily basis. Media buyer Carat () is the first client to sign on to that service, Nielsen said.
Nielsen said it has typically taken weeks for a commercial report, but the new tool will allow for tracking of when scheduled spots run and the gross ratings points delivered vs. those that were guaranteed, allowing for on-the-fly adjustments to ad flights as needed.
