Nielsen Wearable’s to Be Rolled Out This Year

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The ratings firm told clients Thursday that after a “gauntlet” of multi-year testing, it’s new wristband, clip and pendant are reliable and ready for rollout. Nielsen says 50-75% of its panel should be equipped with the wearables by the end of this year.

Calling the wearable the next frontier of audience measurement that will replace the current 1980’s pager-looking device, Nielsen representatives said Thursday that the new hipper looking wearables “increased meter wear time and had comparable tuning levels” with the current device giving them the confidence to move the devices into the marketplace. The new devices are easier to wear and more appealing to demographics with lower compliance.

The testing involved new households and existing panelists since 2018. 400 new homes with a goal of landing 1,000 panelists were recruited along with 800 existing households with a target of 2,000 panelists. A very high percentage of both groups agreed to participate.

Nielsen says the data from the subset panel showed them that panelists spent more time with the wearables.
In addition to the wearable devices, panelists receive a beacon and docking hub which transmits the data back to Nielsen. They are also encouraged to download a companion app that increases the amount of data sent back. In the younger demo, where there’s more competition for app space on phones, Nielsen is working on ways to increase downloads to that group.

Nielsen Audio Principal Data Scientist Erin Wittkowski

Nielsen Audio Principal Data Scientist Erin Wittkowski has been the team leader for this project and did the majority of the presentation Thursday. Wittkowski said the testing showed that the wearables had higher carry and off-dock times across demos and the wearable panelists had higher audio in-tab trends consistent across demographic groups.

The biggest takeaway from the data was that the subset of panelists used in the testing confirmed there was minimal difference in tuning with the introduction of the wearables. Wittkowski said the “technology worked as expected.”

Nielsen Audio Managing Director Brad Kelly said PPM has proven itself to be a world class measurement platform and called the wearables a major step forward and the evolution of audio measurement.

The rollout of the wearables will begin this month. It will begin in 47 PPM markets with Houston to follow a few weeks later. Nielsen expects 50-75% of its panel using wearables by the end of this year.

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