Nielsen’s Inaugural ‘Fourth Screen Report’ for Location-Based Video Ad Networks

An estimated 237 million place-based video ads were displayed to adult audiences each month in the last four months of 2009, according to a new report released today by Nielsen.

“The Fourth Screen Network Audience Report” is Nielsen’s first ever syndicated report that measures the rapidly growing industry of location-based video media. The inaugural report measures ad exposures by 10 video networks in venues like movie theaters, bars and restaurants, health clubs, gas stations, and hotels. Measurements were taken over the last four months of 2009.

The report finds that 54% of the 237 million monthly exposures to persons 18+ were displayed to male audiences , with 46% exposed to females. An estimated 50% of all the monthly exposures were displayed to men and women in the key 18-34 demographic.

This is the first time that any measurement company has provided a comprehensive, standardized audience reporting that allows advertisers to easily compare data from these networks with measurements from the other three screens: TV, Internet, and Mobile.

“For the first time, ad buyers and sellers have a single source to evaluate digital place-based advertising networks in reaching key age and sex demographics, and compare these to other video sources such as TV,” said Terrie Brennan, SVP for New Business Development at Nielsen. “This syndicated report provides the insight necessary to understand the impact of advertising on these networks with television and Internet as well as other cross-media campaigns.”

For example, the C3 average audience for a primetime broadcast TV commercial was three million viewers age 18+ in October 2009. During that same period, video ad exposures to NCM’s and Screenvision’s movie theater networks combined for an average 61.7 million, meaning that it took about 20 primetime ads to reach the same audience as a typical month-long advertising flight on both movie theater networks.

For more information on the report, please see the full press release from Nielsen.