Nielsen Mobile, MRI launch new media usage service

By Giselle Abramovich

August 4, 2008

But I did what you said ...

Nielsen Mobile, a service of Nielsen Co., and Mediamark Research & Intelligence have jointly launched Mobile-MRI, an integrated database of consumers’ mobile and offline media usage.

The new tool will offer detailed behavioral, psychographic, demographic and product usage information on mobile users, providing marketers with more options for customer analysis. The companies will link respondent-level information from their two separate, media tracking services to create a single database.

“When you think about mobile advertising, everyone says it’s still in its early days,” said Kanishka Agarwal, vice president of mobile media at Nielsen Mobile, San Francisco. “Advertisers are still experimenting and therefore still don’t know exactly how to do it, how much to spend and which mobile medium to use.

“This targeting service will help them become more comfortable with tapping into mobile,” he said. “We are helping them reach the audience they want.

“The mobile phone provides direct feedback and a personal connection. We hope that this and the new insights into targeting will drive the adoption of mobile advertising.”

Mobile-MRI will link data from Nielsen Mobile's Mobile Media Marketplace with corresponding data points from MRI’s Survey of the American Consumer.

Using representative panels of mobile users, Nielsen’s Mobile Media Marketplace collects and reports consumer mobile usage, audience sizes and composition across all mobile media vehicles, including messaging, mobile Internet, mobile video, games, ringtones, music and  mobile applications.

MRI’s survey offers data on magazine and newspaper reading, television viewing, radio listening, product consumption, psychographic characteristics, computer and Internet access configurations, and geo-demographic characteristics.

Together, the data will provide a comprehensive understanding of mobile media consumers’ lifestyle and behavior.

“Mobile advertising is in its early stages, with effective targeting being the key to unlocking mobile ROI,” Mr. Agarwal said. “MRI and Nielsen Mobile will deliver a complete view of the mobile consumer, creating the industry’s first holistic mobile audience targeting tool.” 

Nielsen Mobile is an independent provider of syndicated consumer research to the telecoms and mobile media markets. The brand focuses exclusively on tracking the behavior, attitudes and experiences of mobile consumers.

MRI interviews 26,000 U.S. adults in their homes each year, asking about their use of media, their consumption of products and their lifestyles and attitudes. 

MRI is a provider of magazine audience and multimedia research data. The company releases data from Survey of the American Consumer (adults 18-plus) twice yearly, in the spring and fall.

“Basically we are connecting the two data sets to give advertisers more insight on the mobile consumer and what he or she does online and offline,” Mr. Agarwal said. “It’s an information service and all the targeting tools sit on every agency desktop and this data feeds into those tools.”