Kantar Media says it is launching a new television audience measurement service based on data from more than one million set-top boxes.
The syndicated service, Kantar Media Audience Advisor is designed to provide deep insights into consumer viewing behavior, including program engagement and commercial ratings.
Kantar would be competing with Nielsen, which is the leader in the TV audience space, and other data companies including Rentrak, which also uses set top box data for TV research.
By integrating purchase and demographic data from third party partners, Kantar plans to be able to offer information based on demographics and shopping behavior.
Clients planning to use Audience Advisor include GroupM and Saatchi & Saatchi.
"Kantar Media Audience Advisor will provide us with new and valuable insight across a broad national footprint of television households," Rino Scanzoni, Chief Investment Officer for GroupM, said in a statement. "Its combination of second-by-second viewing behavior and robust purchasing data offers the kind of consumer understanding we need to help us make our clients' advertising campaigns as effective as possible."
Kantar says it will bring the necessary quality and research expertise that is standard in currency measurement to Audience Advisor through ongoing data acuity initiatives conducted in the company's exclusive set-top box return path data (RPD) lab facility.
"Audience Advisor is a natural evolution of the audience measurement work that Kantar Media began when it pioneered RPD for analysis of television viewing behavior," said George Shababb, president of Kantar Media Audiences. "The complexity of the marketplace has increased the need for broader, more comprehensive insights but only if they are based on quality data. As a well-established research company with a focused mission, Kantar Media is uniquely positioned to deliver on the need for advanced audience measurement systems that can deliver the power of Big Data along with a high level of data acuity and powerful analytics."
