Nielsen launches Digital Ad Ratings in Hong Kong with Facebook panel

Nielsen has launched its Digital Ad Ratings (DAR) product in Hong Kong, using a database of 5 million Facebook users as its first online panel to measure the market.

Nielsen claims DAR provides demographics, unique audience, reach, frequency and gross rating points (GRPs) for a campaign’s total digital audience across computers, tablets and smartphones in a way comparable to TV. ComScore's vCE (validated campaign essentials) is a simiilar, competing offering.

Within Greater China, Nielsen launched DAR in the heavily mobile Taiwanese market in September 2016, and in May 2015 teamed up with Tencent and Sina Weibo to launch in China. 

Nielsen aims to bring accountability and comparability for Hong Kong’s brand marketers and advertising agencies who until now had no means to measure whether their ads were effectively delivered to the audiences they seek, said Angel Young, managing director of Nielsen Hong Kong and Macau.

Alan Choy, marketing director of specialised nutrition at FrieslandCampina Hong Kong, appears in a Nielsen video supporting the product.

Currently, Hong Kong advertisers rely on local publishers' figures to analyse their digital advertising performance, commented KK Tsang, CEO of The Bees Holdings. "The different sets of figures from different publishers are not deduplicated".

Advertisers can see the clickthrough rates of an ad, but not which demographic viewed it, Tsang added. As such, total digital exposure could often be double counted.