CANNES, France — Nielsen global product leadership president Steve Hasker has put up a spirited defense of his media audience research provider and one of its core measurement tools.
“A lot of people will talk about the GRP (Gross Rating Point) being dead,” he tells moderator Terence Kawaja at this Beet.TV leadership summit. “We have never argued it is the be-all and end-all – but (GRP’s) age and gender is a very good place to start. Take ‘soccer moms’ – there’s an implicit age and gender in there … that is both predictable and projectable.”
Hasker adds Nielsen’s GRPs are rounded out with CPMG purchase behavior data and data about 80% of US credit card transactions: “That enables us to move well beyond the GRP. We’re in no way beholden to the GRP.”
He also denies Nielsen, so long a leader in media measurement, is suffering from “innovator’s dilemma”, an inability to move forward to stay ahead of disruption.
“Nielsen has been as innovative over the last four or five years as anyone in the media space. There’s no innovator’s dilemma at Nielsen – we’re moving as fast as everyone else. I’d like us to move faster … but we are significantly more agile now than we were four or five years ago and we will get more agile.”
Hasker was a panelist on a Beet.TV leadership summit on the future of television advertising held during Cannes Lions. You can find more segments from the sessions here.
