Marketing Pilgrim

Nielsen, the king of audience measurement and the company Search Marketers have come to be autonomous with Search Share Rankings, have split their initiative Nielsen Wireless away from its sister service Nielsen Games in an effort to push forward the tracking of mobile phone users beyond media measurement – in particular to investigate the usage of mobile content services.

Mobile Vector, the venture’s first product, will segment existing TV metering by wireless carrier using ‘in the home’ media behaviour. The objective will be to give brands and agencies insights that were previously unavailable. (Full report expected July 2007)

Interesting information is already emerging – including viewing preferences:

• more than half of primary users of video-enabled mobile phones lived in households with total incomes of $75,000 or above
• people in Sprint households were more likely than people in T-Mobile households to have a digital broadcast satellite (DBS) system
• [viewing] rating for the American Idol finale was higher among people in Verizon households than those in Sprint or AT&T households

Later this year, Nielsen will expand Nielsen Mobile Vector to include a survey of mobile phone users that will provide information about their consumption of mobile media content. Through continued collaboration with wireless industry stakeholders, Nielsen’s ultimate goal is to develop a system that will support a market-wide view of mobile media consumption.

Jeff Herrmann, Nielsen Vice President and leader of the Wireless project, commented:

This new mobile measurement service demonstrates Nielsen’s continued commitment to follow content wherever consumers take it.