Nielsen Acquires Sports Marketing Startup vBrand
Nielsen (NYSE: NLSN) announced that it has acquired vBrand, an Israel-based technology startup that has developed a machine learning-enabled platform to measure brand exposure and impact in sports programming.
VBrand’s “always-on” artificial intelligence data platform tracks TV and digital media in near real-time, identifying a brand’s exposure and the context in which it appears. The platform captures information, including audience data and engagement metrics, that provides earned vs. paid media evaluation, monetary value calculations, cross-brand comparative analysis, placement effectiveness, and other insights.
The acquisition of vBrand’s technology expands Nielsen Sports’ industry-leading sponsorship measurement capabilities and methodologies, considered among the most robust in sports. vBrand’s machine learning will accelerate the speed at which Nielsen Sports’ logo recognition and media monitoring technologies locate and calculate brand positions on screen. The vBrand technology can allow brands and rights holders to monitor and track sponsorship visibility within hours of an event, and provide the opportunity to make digital signage and social campaign adjustments within a tournament, competition weekend, or season.
Sports marketing is becoming increasingly important for brands looking to reach consumers in a competitive and fragmented marketplace. With fans reliably tuning in to watch their favorite leagues, teams, and athletes, global sports and entertainment sponsorship spending is projected to reach $60 billion in 2017. Nielsen Sports’ marketing solutions already measure millions of hours of content per year, helping to deliver analytics and insights to more than 1,700 rights holders, brands, agencies, and broadcasters.
According to Nielspon, vBrand and its technology will be fully integrated into Nielsen Sports, bringing increased delivery speed and scale to the company’s existing sports products, Sport24 and Social24. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
