Author Topic: We're going to be a Nielsen Family  (Read 2802 times)

micah

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We're going to be a Nielsen Family
« on: October 13, 2017, 05:38:21 PM »
A rep from Nielsen stopped by this summer and I told her I was interested but then some personal stuff happened and I kinda blew her off.  Anyway she showed up with a gift basket tonight and I talked to her for a few minutes and she's gonna come back next week and get us set up.

As a data nerd who watches TV and works in marketing I kinda think its cool. They randomly give you money and gifts for participating which is nice, plus unlike political elections, I can feel like my opinions about things (in this case TV shows) actually matters.  They'll probably wonder why all we watch is DuckTales and phineas and ferb reruns. LOL
"I possess a device, in my pocket, that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to man.  I use it to look at pictures of cats and get in arguments with strangers."

hans

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Re: We're going to be a Nielsen Family
« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2017, 10:54:41 AM »
Bring back Firefly.


Really though, that's pretty cool.
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charlie

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Re: We're going to be a Nielsen Family
« Reply #2 on: October 14, 2017, 11:57:39 AM »
Yeah.. I used to want to do that.

Then we became a quasi-Nielsen family where we just logged our TV watching habits for a couple weeks. I realized we don't watch enough TV for me to want to put in the effort so I've resisted future attempts to get us to log stuff again. (I do keep the dollar bills they send in the mail though.)

micah

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Re: We're going to be a Nielsen Family
« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2017, 02:37:10 PM »
I asked about what equipment they would need to install and she said its just a listening device that shazams* everything it hears (so it doesn't matter if you're watching broadcast tv or DVR or netflix.) I already trust Google and Amazon with their "always listening" devices so I guess I'm cool with this.  She assured me its anonymously collected (I'm mean, obviously they know who we are and all our demographic information) but there's no one actually listening to the audio to hear me yelling at my kids all day.

*I'm using shazam as a verb, but interestingly enough, she told me that shazam actual runs their service off of neilsen's backbone technology.
"I possess a device, in my pocket, that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to man.  I use it to look at pictures of cats and get in arguments with strangers."

ober

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Re: We're going to be a Nielsen Family
« Reply #4 on: October 16, 2017, 12:04:45 PM »
Oddly enough, Nielsen has called my work desk phone probably 20 times since I started.  I kept ignoring it and they finally stopped calling.  Not sure why it took them so long to realize this was a business, but whatever.

KnuckleBuckett

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Re: We're going to be a Nielsen Family
« Reply #5 on: October 17, 2017, 06:13:31 AM »
Next time use the secret password.  Shazam.

Perspective

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Re: We're going to be a Nielsen Family
« Reply #6 on: October 17, 2017, 08:37:55 AM »
At first I thought you were switching brands of milk , but then I googled this Neilsen thing. I don't really get how it works though. What do they install exactly and what do you get in return?

micah

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Re: We're going to be a Nielsen Family
« Reply #7 on: October 17, 2017, 09:03:13 AM »
At first I thought you were switching brands of milk , but then I googled this Neilsen thing. I don't really get how it works though. What do they install exactly and what do you get in return?
As far as the install, I don't know exactly. Traditionally they've used a lot of different technology, from set top devices that you use to tune your tv to manual log entries that you mail in.  The lady told me this was a small self contained device they stick on the back of the TV that listens to everything and phones home (not sure if its on my wifi or if they have some 4G baked in).
The what I get in return is a little iffy. So far I've gotten $1 cash and 2 gift baskets.  She said you get some money every once in a while (from googling around, sounds like its $10 or $15/month) but mostly it is the smug sense of satisfaction that your part of a small-ish sample (relatively speaking) influencing TV and marketing. They get to package up that data and sell it for huge sums of money to various industries.
"I possess a device, in my pocket, that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to man.  I use it to look at pictures of cats and get in arguments with strangers."

hans

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Re: We're going to be a Nielsen Family
« Reply #8 on: October 22, 2017, 11:25:16 PM »
How does this line up with more and more people watching from streaming services vs the cable box/broadcast tv? I'm just curious and sort of just thought of it but wouldn't a lot of this kind of info be gleaned from view counts and such that I'm sure Netflix/Hulu etc are collecting?
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