Nielsen Corporation

The Nielsen Corporation, formerly known as AC-Nielsen or AC Nielsen is a global marketing researchrm, with worldwide headquarters in New York City,United States of America. Regional headquarters forNorth America are located in the Chicago suburb ofSchaumburg, Illinois.[1] As of May 2010, it is part ofNielsen Holdings.

This companywas founded in 1923 in Chicago, byArthurC. Nielsen, Sr., in order to give marketers reliable and ob-jective information on the impact of marketing and salesprograms. ACNielsen began expanding internationally in1939, and now operates in more than 100 countries.

1 Activities

One of Nielsen’s best known creations is the Nielsen rat-ings, an Audience measurement system that measurestelevision, radio and newspaper audiences in their respec-tive media markets. In 1950 they acquired the C. E.Hooper company and began attaching recording devicesto a statistical sample of about 1,200 consumer televi-sion sets in the U.S.[2] These devices used photographiclm in mail-in cartridges to record the channels viewedby the consumer and thus determine audience size. Laterthey developed electronic methods of data collection andtransmission. In 1996, Nielsen split o this part of itsoperations into a separate company called Nielsen Me-dia Research (NMR), which operated as an independentcompany until it was acquired by Dutch conglomerateVNU in 1999.

Another market research tool is the Homescan programwhere sample members track and report all grocery andretail purchases, allowing purchasing patterns to be re-lated to household demographics. Homescan covers sev-eral countries including Australia, Canada, the UnitedKingdom, and the United States. In 2004, ACNielsenchose the CipherLab CPT-8001 as its data collection ter-minal for the Homescan program throughout Asia.[3]

2 International

In Germany, ACNielsen gained particular reputation fortheir introduction of the Nielsen areas (or Nielsengebietein German), each of which includes one or more Germanfederal states sharing a similar economic structure, cul-ture, and consumer behaviour. To a considerable part,

marketing strategies in heterogeneous Germany dependon the Nielsengebiete, this even leading to the result thatsome trademarks or marketing campaigns have only beenintroduced in some of the Nielsengebiete. In addition, inmany newspapers or magazines disseminated nationwide,ads may be placed for just only one or some Nielsengebi-ete; the circulation gures of print media are often statedaccording to Nielsengebiete, as well.

3 M & A

In 2001, ACNielsen itself was acquired by VNU, aspart of VNU’s Marketing Information group, and thus isnow under the same corporate umbrella as the companyit spawned, NMR. Nielsen Media Research is based inNew York City, while ACNielsen headquarters remainin Schaumburg, Illinois.

ACNielsen is also sister company to Nielsen//NetRatings,which measures Internet and digital media audiences,and Nielsen BuzzMetrics, which measures Consumer-Generated Media.

IMS Health and ACNielsen ORG-MARG entered into ajoint venture on 1 January 2004, aligning their health careinformation business operations in India, bringing to-gether the two organizations’ global expertise and stronglocal presence to deliver a broader array of actionable,strategic solutions to the pharmaceutical market.

In 2005, ACNielsen initiated their MVP (Media VoicePanel) program. Panel members carry an electronic mon-itor that detects the digital station and program identi -cation codes hidden within the TV and radio broadcaststhey are exposed to. At night, members place the mon-itor in a cradle that sends the collected data through thehome’s electrical wiring to a relay device that transmits itby phone, making it one of the rst practical uses of elec-trical wiring as a home network. With an approximatelyone week notice to members, the MVP program endedon March 17, 2008.

In 2007, the owner VNU changed its name to “TheNielsen Company".

Arthur Charles Nielsen, Jr. (born April 8, 1919)[4] theman who acquired the company from his father, died atthe age of 92 on October 3, 2011.[5]

1

2 5 REFERENCES

4 External links• Nielsen

• HomeScan

• Nielsen areas of Germany

• ACNielsen Australian two party preferred and pre-ferred prime minister polling 1996 - 2007

5 References[1] Nielsen - Contact

[2]

[3] “CPT-8001 Preferred Terminal For ACNielsen (Asia Pa-

ci c)" IT Reseller Online, 2004-10-28

[4]

[5] http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/05/2440615/

arthur-c-nielsen-jr-head-of-tv.html

Examples for marketing based on Nielsen areas: