Whether I'm at an industry event, client meeting or cocktail party, one question seems to come up over and over:  "How do I know I'm reaching my target audience with games advertising."  Today we have a number of ways we measure the impact of our client's campaigns, including CTRs and ad effectiveness research.  But as the lines between television, video and gaming continue to blur, I am getting this question more often from TV buyers or CMOs of big brands who regularly advertise on television, but want to add games advertising to their media mix. 

Reach is their holy grail after all, and for years they've relied on Nielsen to verify that they are reaching directly into the living rooms of the consumers they target.   So it's a valid question, if one that has been frustrating to answer in the context of games advertising.

Until now. 

The Xbox LIVE advertising group has teamed up with the Nielsen Company to launch a pilot test, beginning with Season 2 of 1 vs. 100, to obtain content, channel and ad specific metrics and identify who was playing the game and saw a particular advertisement.  This is the first time content delivered through a video game console network will be capable of being measured by Nielsen's television, online and video game metering technologies, such as the Nielsen people meter. Our goal is to ultimately provide advertisers with concrete Gross Rating Points (GRPs) and Targeted Rating Points (TRPs) to maximize their media spend.

I'm really looking forward to this effort-it's a huge milestone in the evolution of games and entertainment advertising and a great benefit for our advertisers.  We've made a substantial investment of time and resources to launch this pilot. Yet, as we bring Xbox LIVE into the TV advertising ecosystem, we feel that it is imperative to bring valid measurement capabilities along with it.  This is a critical first step in doing that.

The second season of "1 vs 100" will run for 14 weeks.  (If you haven't checked out 1 vs. 100, you definitely should join in for Season 2-it's a blast.)  After this pilot test, we'll continue to collaborate with Nielsen to learn how electronic measurement, panels and census data can be applied to additional Xbox LIVE media types such as TV, video, social media -this is only the beginning.

So if I run into you and you're itching to ask me how you can be sure that the ads you run on our platform are reaching the right people, at the right time, in the right place, ask away.  I'll definitely have plenty to say.

Regards

Mark