• What is Nielsen BuzzMetrics?
• What exactly is consumer-generated media?
• Where is CGM found?
• Why is CGM so important?
• What products and services does BuzzMetrics offer?

What is Nielsen BuzzMetrics?

Nielsen BuzzMetrics helps today’s companies build, promote and protect their brands by measuring, analyzing and leveraging the increasingly influential phenomenon known as consumer-generated media (CGM). Business professionals have long known that word of mouth is the most powerful form of influence and advertising. The explosive growth of consumer-generated content on the Internet—particularly in online forums, boards, blogs, and Usenet newsgroups—provides an archive of digital content that today’s technologies can now track and measure. In fact, billions of pieces of "content" exist on the Internet, a ready pool of insight-rich research and market intelligence.

Nielsen BuzzMetrics combines state-of-the-art technologies with industry-specific analyst expertise to discover content, classify and analyze consumer-generated media and turn it into actionable business and marketing intelligence. It’s the kind of data that serves as a perfect complement to traditional research and media planning. It’s also the kind of data that, if overlooked or ignored, can cause companies and brands to lose a competitive edge in today’s rapidly changing, rapidly evolving marketplace. In the process, Nielsen BuzzMetrics is creating the new global measurement standard for consumer-generated media.

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What exactly is consumer-generated media?

CGM is high-impact media generated by consumers, typically informed by relevant experience with products and services and archived online for ready consumption by other consumers or key marketplace influencers—e.g. media, analysts, regulators, competitors, etc. Catalyzed by the explosive growth of the Internet, CGM includes opinions, advice, consumer-to-consumer discussions, reviews, shared personal experiences, photos, images, videos, even podcasts. Once created, this "media" is also circulated, shared, researched and depended upon by other consumers for everything from purchase decisions to brand choices.

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Where is CGM found?

CGM is found on Internet message board discussions, blog entries, Internet forum comments, consumer ratings and reviews, and even in direct company feedback. Because it is posted on the Internet, this online content creates a digital "trail" that can be measured and analyzed rigorously.

As one of the fastest-growing sources of indexed content on search engines, CGM plays an unmistakable and often influential role in driving consumer perceptions, awareness and purchase behavior. According to PEW Internet Life & American Project, consumers are increasingly active creators of content on the Internet, via blogs, message boards, ratings/review web sites, and other venues. Consumers often encounter CGM while researching products during the buying cycle; positive CGM can help build brand loyalty, while negative CGM can lead to brand deterioration.

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Why is CGM so important?

CGM has the potential to fill an important, unmet need in our clients’ marketing and media mix. Today's media landscape is shifting rapidly. Media sources are fragmenting, consumer attention is elusive, and new tools are emerging which empower consumers to easily skip, screen, filter or delete ads. With fewer options in hand, advertisers are aggressively pushing new techniques and platforms to capture and exploit what remains of consumer attention, from product placement, branded entertainment and a seemingly unstoppable series of intrusive, interruptive and invasive ad formats.

As consumer "trust" in marketer-sponsored messaging erodes, consumer confidence in the opinions and recommendations of other consumers is growing. Virtually every major research house has published studies suggesting that "recommendations from other consumers" rank higher than television, radio, print, direct mail, outdoor, and product placement in trust and credibility. In the automotive area, for instance, where billions are spent in measured media, word-of-mouth is now the number one factor that influences purchase behavior. A growing school of thought in advertising circles holds that consumer conversations, pass-alongs, or recommendations are important building blocks of so-called "engagement"—a measurement standard being pushed by industry groups such as the ANA, ARF and AAAA, as a complement to traditional exposure metrics. BuzzMetrics has made important inroads in making a case that CGM and word of mouth are critical building blocks of engagement. Moreover, the Internet’s digital CGM trail can serve as a complementary auditing tool of other media vehicles, including television.

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What products and services does BuzzMetrics offer?

BuzzMetrics’ practices currently concentrate on key solutions in five key industries, even though the company is willing to help any brand in any industry understand, measure and leverage CGM and word-of-mouth influence. Nielsen BuzzMetrics offers a BrandPulse solution, provided as either a reporting interface, written reports or both, that help track, analyze and measure the volume of CGM about a particular company or brand. BrandPulse Insight focuses on specialized, issue-specific reports that monitor and highlight consumer trends, issues, opinion shifts, predictions and other marketplace-shaping forces.

Nielsen BuzzMetrics has developed specific expertise in five key industries: Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Nutrition, Pharma-Health and Television, but its analysts and researchers are happy to help any company and any brand measure and understand CGM.

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