Bangkok, Thailand – Advertising investments by marketers in Thailand rose 4% in January to April 2024, compared to the same period a year ago–with 8 out of 10 marketers saying that the increase is due to social media spend, according to the latest data from Nielsen.

This increase of more than 1,255 million baht, period-on-period, echoes a predicted rise in ad budgets, which shows that 82% of the region’s marketers expect bigger ad budgets in 2024 – a significant jump from 56% in 2023.

While a significant decrease in print spend (-33%) and radio (-2) hindered growth numbers for the Thai advertising market, it was buoyed by large gains in cinema advertising (up 35%), online advertising (up 8%) and linear TV, (up 1%), delivering an overall increase of 4%.

Moreover, while digital channels are expected to occupy almost two-thirds of paid marketing spend in APAC this year, the report also showed that much of that spend may be ‘wasted’, with the average ‘off target’ rate for digital ads in Thailand coming in at 44% – much higher than the APAC average of 33%.

Runchita Srivoravilai, vertical lead for agencies and advertisers at Nielsen Thailand, said, “As Thailand’s ad landscape grows more complex by the day, brands, agencies, and media owners need cutting-edge, high-quality commercial intelligence to stand out from the competition and strategically advance their brands and media. Nothing else comes close to Nielsen Ad Intel here.”

Meanwhile, Arnaud Frade, president of commercial for Asia at Nielsen, commented, “These numbers highlight the necessity for marketers to be more strategic in their ad spend, leveraging top-quality data to gain a competitive edge and maximise their ROI. As budgets get tighter, and there’s growing pressure on being seen and heard, marketers in Asia are doubling-down on targeting the right audiences. Multi-screen viewing is already the norm – and streaming channels are only going to grow. The key is leveraging this, which means effective cross-media measurement, which Nielsen is actively working to deliver in key markets across the region.”

Singapore – Nielsen has announced that it is expanding its Connected TV (CTV) measurement of YouTube ads into 11 global markets. These include Australia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, and the UK.

Through the service expansion, the agreement between Nielsen and Google will integrate the YouTube CTV measurement service, inclusive of co-viewing, into Nielsen ONE Ads to measure audiences in these markets.

‘Nielsen ONE Ads’ is the company’s cross-platform campaign measurement product suite which provides deduplicated audience reach and frequency metrics. The addition of YouTube CTV into Nielsen ONE Ads internationally gives advertisers and agencies a comprehensive view of campaigns across multiple platforms. It also allows buyers to better understand reach, manage frequency and verify the audience of their buys on YouTube with greater comparability than ever before. 

Deirdre Thomas, chief product officer for Nielsen Audience Measurement, said, “The expansion of our measurement of YouTube CTV ads in 11 countries is a major step forward in our Nielsen ONE global roll out. Agencies and advertisers need comprehensive, consistent, deduplicated measurement of audiences globally, and Nielsen is uniquely positioned to provide that.”

She added, “We are proud to partner with Google to enable YouTube CTV measurement within Nielsen ONE. This is another major milestone on our path to deliver true cross-platform measurement.”

Meanwhile, Kate Alessi, managing director for global product solutions at YouTube, commented, “The way people watch video has changed, and advertisers are calling for comprehensive cross-media measurement across screens. This expansion allows advertisers and agencies in 11 additional markets to compare YouTube’s reach across devices with TV, providing a more complete picture of ad spend and the deduplicated audiences they’re reaching.”

Singapore – Market measurement firm Nielsen has announced the incorporation of YouTube measurement in its Total Ad Ratings (TAR) solution across the Southeast Asian markets of Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. This provides deduplicated cross-platform metrics for campaigns that are served both on TV and digital.

Nielsen is providing cross-platform metrics on which media buyers and sellers can transact. This announcement will now allow advertisers to measure YouTube inventory in their cross-media campaigns in a total of seven markets globally — Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Mexico, Italy, U.S. and France. 

TAR responds to the needs of advertisers wanting a more holistic view of their audiences, including YouTube, so they can understand the scale of the audience they’re able to reach through campaigns that are served both on TV and digital.

Arnaud Frade, head of commercial growth at Nielsen APAC, said, “In a fragmenting media landscape advertisers need independent cross-media metrics to optimise ad spends and enhance ROI while reaching the right audiences. This is an important milestone and investment toward our global Nielsen ONE strategy, underpinning a strong digital measurement capability which helps with the vision of a true cross-platform that measures across all screens.”

Meanwhile, Gaurav Kapur, managing director at Google, commented, “We are pleased that YouTube measurement within Nielsen’s Total Ads Rating solution is expanding to Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand. We firmly believe independent measurement helps the industry better navigate an increasingly fragmented media landscape. With better tools from measurement partners like Nielsen, advertisers can be more strategic about their investments.” 

Singapore – Market measurement firm Nielsen has released new data to list the most influential players on Instagram, with all of the listed players to play at the FIFA World Cup 2022.

Cristiano Ronaldo, who has been a global superstar for nearly 20 years with Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus, again increased his Instagram following in the past year with around 47% follower growth. He leads the list with a media value of US$3,585,218.

Following next is Argentinian footballer Lionel Messi with a media value of US$2,631,388 and Brazilian footballer Neymar with a media value of US$1,152,495. Other high-ranking players include French football player Kylian Mbappé (US$1,173,157 media value) and Brazilian player Vinícius Júnior (US$685,120).

Meanwhile, Spanish footballer Gavi ranks first in the breakthrough players list on Instagram, with an expected media value of US$377,305 and an engagement rate of 29.46%. Following him is Brazilian player Raphinha with a media value of US$22,727 and engagement rate of 3.59% and Brazilian player Antony with media value of US$106,229 and engagement rate of 12.42%. 

Other breakthrough players include Spanish player Pedri (US$255,212 media value and 13.20% engagement rate), Argentinian player Rodrigo De Paul (US$206,983 media value and 13.34% engagement rate), and Brazilian player Rodrygo (US$119,726 media value and 5.42% engagement rate).

Marco Nazzari, managing director of international sport at Nielsen said, “With dozens of the world’s most recognizable athletes competing for football’s ultimate prize, the World Cup will capture the attention of nearly a billion people. This event provides brands unique opportunities to partner with the right footballers to effectively engage their target audiences. Nielsen InfluenceScope evaluates all aspects of a particular player’s influence so that brands can ensure that they receive a proper rate-of-return for the right investment.”

Singapore – Media spend varies by region, with brands in APAC reinvesting a higher percentage than other regions, while brands in North America reinvest slightly less, but enjoy a much stronger payback, according to a report by global audience measurement, data, and analytics company Nielsen.

The report also found that media spend often needs to be higher to break through and drive returns. Nielsen shared that its ‘50-50-50 Gap’ states that while 50% of media plans are underinvested by a median of 50%, ROI can be improved by 50% with the ideal budget.

Moreover, beyond budgeting, the report showed key insights and recommendations to deliver higher ROI across multiple marketing areas, including full-funnel marketing, whereas adding upper-funnel marketing to existing lower- and mid-funnel marketing can grow overall ROI by 13-70%.

Another key recommendation is ad sales growth strategy, where comparing channel ROIs can help set pricing strategies. And lastly, audience measurement, where advertisers should prioritise measurement solutions that cover all platforms and devices, with near-real-time insights. 

Imran Hirani, Nielsen’s vice president of media and advertiser analytics, said, “Brands can’t afford to waste valuable ads on the wrong audiences. By investing wisely and having a balanced strategy of both upper-funnel and lower-funnel initiatives, brands can reach the right audiences and maximise their ROI.”

Singapore – From a global perspective among brand marketers aiming to seek priorities for brands this year, only 26% of global marketers are confident in their audience data. This is according to the latest survey from market measurement firm Nielsen.

This is despite the fact that the survey noted that 69% of marketers believe first-party data is essential for their strategies and campaigns, and 72% of marketers believe they have access to quality data.

Speaking of brand awareness, around 64% of respondents stated that social media is the most effective paid channel with TikTok and Instagram dominating spend. Comparatively, TV and radio spend is significantly less with an aggregate increase of 53% across global marketers. Customer acquisition is their second objective, showing that marketers must focus efforts on the entire customer journey.

Meanwhile, marketers’ confidence in measuring ROI of the full-funnel is only 54%. Remove online and mobile video and confidence in measuring ROI across all other channels is under 50% globally, and while nearly half of marketers plan to increase their spending on podcasts, their confidence in measuring the ROI of that investment is 44%.

In addition, the survey notes that only 36% of marketers still claim that data access, identity resolution, and deriving actionable insights from data is either extremely or very difficult. With the rise of connected TV (CTV) presents new challenges to traditional targeting solutions. CTV is a growing focus for global marketers, with 51% planning to increase their over-the-top/CTV spending in the coming year.

Lastly, the data shows that 55% of consumers aren’t convinced that brands are fostering true progress, despite global marketers saying their brands are emphasising purpose.

Jamie Moldafsky, chief marketing and communications officer at Nielsen, said, “This research showcased that marketers want to put money into channels to deliver immediate ROI, however we also see that they must be agile in the year ahead and work across the entire marketing funnel to reinforce brand awareness and acquire more customers. With the upcoming elimination of third-party cookies, it’s understandable to see marketers prioritising personalization and aligning their brand with causes their customers care about. Through our solutions – and this report – we’re continuing to help brands and marketers get actionable insights to make more informed, and quicker decisions.”

Sydney, Australia – Market measurement firm Nielsen in Australia and adtech PubMatic have recently announced a new data collaboration, which now makes Nielsen’s audience data now available to PubMatic’s Audience Encore™ product, allowing advertisers to buy premium omnichannel inventory layered with quality data for precision targeting and better performance.

PubMatic’s Audience Encore™ is an audience platform designed for marketers to transact on unique, addressable audience data across premium omnichannel inventory.

Through the data collaboration, brands can benefit from PubMatic’s extensive reach, enabling advertisers to engage audiences wherever they may be across all digital channels. Furthermore, brands may now access Nielsen’s premium audience data, along with insights into consumer behavior, preferences, and purchasing decisions. 

Nielsen’s rich audience data has a unique breadth and depth and includes proprietary fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) data, credit card transaction data, psychographic data, intent, and interest data.

For Daisy Smith, associate director for Nielsen Marketing Cloud at Nielsen Australia, brands are constantly competing for consumers’ attention, hence audience data and insights play a significant role in engaging consumers when they are most receptive to advertising.

“With the widespread adoption of premium programmatic deals, the need to package high-quality datasets with premium inventory is bigger than ever. The partnership between Nielsen and PubMatic provides marketers with a high level of consumer intelligence while optimizing their advertising investments across all the touchpoints on the consumer journey,” Smith stated.

In a statement, Nielsen stated that their data layered onto PubMatic’s Auction Packages or private marketplaces (PMPs) may benefit advertisers by giving them the ability to leverage data and contextual targeting across premium inventory. 

“This can enable advertisers to identify and buy media with the publishers that attempt to attract the most suited, addressable audiences for each brand. This gives advertisers the opportunity to reduce wasted ad spend and focus budget on premium inventory, maximizing the effectiveness of campaigns,” the company said in a press statement.

Meanwhile, Peter Barry, regional director for ANZ and head of audience for APAC at PubMatic, commented, “With Nielsen data available through PubMatic’s Audience Encore, our clients can expand their media campaigns and reach new, highly targeted audiences. Our goal is to fundamentally change the way marketers and data owners transact on audience data by giving more control to the data owner and better return on investment (ROI) for the advertiser. For retail brands, this provides an exciting opportunity to engage consumers in the run-up to key shopping periods, such as Black Friday and the run-up to Christmas, to ensure they are top-of-mind when consumers look to purchase.”

The data collaboration recently follows the partnership between NielsenIQ and experience management (XM) company Qualtrics in aiding to create comprehensive brand experience solutions for brands.

Singapore – Sales used to be a one-off thing, or at least a seasonal event that sees it happening after a particular interval, but now, sales, in the mid of the rise of e-commerce, has now become so much more than just brands offering discounts, but has turned to be a ‘celebration’ of some sort – a celebration of consumers’ buying power and merchants’ easier access to revenue. With this, mega sales are now being held on a regular basis, specifically every identical date of the month – such as ‘7.7’ for July, or ‘8.8’ for August.

The trend on mega sales events quickly transcended online commerce, and is now being joined by offline brands as well. This then makes brands think, how is the consumer behaving amid all this hoo-ha? Short-video platform TikTok conducted a 2021 survey among over 1,800 Southeast Asian users in March 2021, where 82 percent admitted to purchasing a new brand instead of a regular brand during mega sales. 

Moreover, the same survey demonstrated that over half, 55 percent, made unexpected purchases during the said sales events, even when they had prepared a shopping list. This comes as an interesting insight as brands are in constant search of ways to attract new buyers. Adding to this, TikTok’s data also found that during this time, consumers are more open to exploring, with them shopping more across all categories. 

Consumers’ likelihood to demonstrate an adventurous disposition during these mega sales events can be chalked up to the feelings of elation that shoppers have when these special sales arrive. According to a Nielsen Global Authenticity study, likewise commissioned by the short-video platform, 67 percent of users felt ‘happy’ or ‘excited’ towards the mega sales shopping season. 

On that feel-good factor, it seems that shoppers are not only looking to the shopping event itself to ignite these positive feelings but are also expecting it at every step of the experience – becoming more inclined to engage in ‘shoppertainment’ or the fusion of entertainment and shopping. Brands themselves have raised the bar, leveraging today’s digital platforms in order to allure shoppers such as through live streams, short videos, and even augmented reality. 

The same Nielsen study shows that 83 percent of users prefer to see video ads from brands over gifs or text posts. 

Ng Chew Wee, the head of business marketing for TikTok in Southeast Asia, said that people have ceased simply searching for products, but are also searching for ‘people’. 

“This year, we are seeing a rise of Shoppertainment – a convergence of content and commerce – where shoppers expect not just to be sold to, but to be entertained as well. Instead of people searching for products, products are now searching for people. We hope these insights can help businesses own their Mega Sales moment and engage with TikTok’s community of happy users. Happy users, happy buyers!” said Ng Chew Wee.