StarHub and Nielsen tie up to bolster audience profiling for advertisers

StarHub and Nielsen have partnered up to boost audience profiling options for TV advertisers in Singapore. This is through StarHub’s SmarTAM, its television audience measurement system, which will be fused with product and brands consumption data from Nielsen’s Consumer and Media View (CMV).The partnership aims to give advertisers and media buyers a wider range of variables to analyse their target audiences. This will allow them to better profile by demographics and behaviour insights, as well as target audiences based on the consumption of products and brands.In a conversation with Marketing, Germaine Ng Ferguson (pictured), general manager of integrated solutions & analysis, StarHub, said that the partnership was an investment that was placed to better understand subscribers’ viewing preferences and better service advertising clients.Meanwhile, StarHub declined to disclose the value of investment due to commercial contract terms. It added that this move is "welcomed" by media agencies and advertisers.One advertiser that had came on board is Malaysia Dairy Industries. The brand had been leveraging on StarHub's SmarTAM tool to deliver results for its Vitagen and Marigold brands.“Through their recommendation, we saw double-digit increase in sales for both Vitagen and Marigold HL Milk with Plant Sterols last year. We look forward to the advancement of SmarTAM to help us drive better value for our advertising investment,” Thio Hui See, head of marketing, Malaysia Dairy Industries, said.According to StarHub, this enhancement strengthens StarHub SmartTAM’s ability to help advertisers gain deeper audience insights, and thus make better informed decisions in scheduling their TV advertising campaigns.“Nowadays, through the advancement in tools and technology, we have the ability to sharpen the point on our targeting and engagement across multiple touchpoints to mirror the consumer experience, and thus with StarHub SmarTAM, we can deliver even more optimised results for our clients,” Vivian Yeung, managing director, MediaCom Singapore, said.Currently, StarHub SmarTAM uses Return Path Data (RPD) technology to track both real-time and time-shift viewing of TV content and advertising spots across more than 200 StarHub TV channels. RPD refers to data collected from interactions with cable or IPTV set-top boxes every second for every channel, live, time-shifted or on demand. It forms big data which can provide insights for channel viewing, channel switching, consumption of each programme or advertisement, which button is pushed on the remote, what has been recorded and more.Meanwhile, Nielsen Consumer and Media View (CMV) is a syndicated study that surveys adults aged 15+ in Singapore on their demographics, media, product, and brand consumption habits. According to StarHub and Nielsen, CMV acts as an important reference for media owners and media agencies.“Since SmarTAM was launched in September 2015, we have been working with the media industry on our next innovation. StarHub recognises the industry’s need for accurate and comprehensive TV audience measurement that is representative of our pay TV households and individuals and provides deeper insights at brands and product category levels all in one system,” Ferguson, said.“We are focused on innovation and are constantly looking at ‘what’s next’ to enhance our analytical offerings to our clients and partners to grow their business. StarHub is one of our most valued partners. We are invested to provide a holistic audience measurement solution to enable their advertisers with an integrated and more complete understanding of today’s complex consumers,” Annette Kunst, managing director, media, Nielsen Singapore, said.