Audit Bureau of Circulations launches digital measurement

The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), an independent body that provides audited newspaper and magazine circulation data, is now foraying into the measurement of digital properties. The solution will be powered by Nielsen, which will provide a comprehensive end‐to‐end measurement across devices.

The service, which goes live from Q3 2016, fills the gap for digital property owners by offering them precise audience metrics. The solution being deployed by Nielsen measures audiences consistently across PC and mobile, providing the media industry with highly accurate measurement of online text content, as well as key performance metrics such as reach, frequency, and demographics.

Optimising big data to understand demographics, ensuring granularity of data while providing insights complemented by weekly sectional reporting across different devices, will empower digital property owners, advertisers, and agencies to take informed decisions.

"At the rate at which spends are shifting to digital, it has now become imperative to have a transparent system for understanding digital audiences, whether they (the audiences) are accessing information on websites or apps from their PCs, tablets, or mobile phones. This digital measurement service will add to ABC's existing circulation audit service for publications. We are not restricting ourselves to the print publisher fraternity, but will extend the service to include digital property owners across sectors. This is a historic moment, as for the first time in India, an industry body has started a service of this kind," says Shashidhar Sinha, chairman, Audit Bureau of Circulations.

"Nielsen's collaboration with ABC is a testament to our expertise in the digital measurement space. We know it is essential to understand digital consumption patterns to truly understand today's consumer. For the digital property owners' community, the industry-backed numbers will lend credibility and provide a massive boost to its growing digital presence. This sophisticated solution will address fragmentation across niche digital properties, user segments of all sizes, and most importantly, a complete view across devices - giving advertisers and agencies a comprehensive picture and measure of RoI (Return-on-Investment) for their digital spends," adds Prashant Singh, managing director, Nielsen India Region.

"The outreach will be to all digital properties, going beyond ABC publisher members, and will bring about standardisation and higher accountability in measuring the consumer base with the backing of industry accreditation. This will prove to be an important and path‐breaking currency for a fast-evolving and dynamic industry," comments Hormuzd Masani, secretary general, ABC.

According to the bureau's official statement, across media, digital is witnessing the highest year‐on‐year growth of nearly 30 per cent. While there are some marketers who have allocated over 20 per cent of their marketing budget to digital, nearly all brand marketers are looking to spend more. This is more so due to the fast‐growing internet user base, creativity, and innovation possible on the digital medium, and the ability to better reach targeted audiences. The ABC digital measurement service will empower digital property owners to prove their capabilities in being able to reach out to the right audiences.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations is one of the several organisations of the same name operating in different parts of world. ABC, founded in 1948, is a not‐for‐profit, voluntary organisation consisting of publishers, advertisers and advertising agencies. It works on developing audit procedures to certify the circulation data of publications which are members of ABC. The main function of ABC is to evolve and lay down a standard and uniform audit procedure by which a member publisher shall compute its qualifying copies. The circulation figure so arrived at is checked and verified by a firm of chartered accountants which are empanelled by the Bureau.

The Bureau issues ABC certificates every six months to those publisher members whose circulation figures confirm to the rules and regulations as set out by it. Circulation figures that are checked and certified by an independent body are an important tool and critical to the advertising business community.

Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) is a global performance management company that provides an understanding of what consumers 'watch' and 'buy'. Nielsen's Watch segment provides media and advertising clients with Total Audience Measurement (TAM) services across all devices where content -- video, audio, and text -- is consumed. The Buy segment offers consumer-packaged goods manufacturers and retailers the industry's only global view of retail performance measurement. By integrating information from its Watch and Buy segments and other data sources, Nielsen provides its clients with both world‐class measurement, as well as analytics that help improve performance. Nielsen, an S&P 500 company, has operations in over 100 countries that cover more than 90 per cent of the world's population.