Nielsen on November 3 launched CMI Journey in New Zealand, a path-to-purchase research product that follows consumer decisions in 30 categories and records the part played by more than 50 media touchpoints, from television and search to recommendations and consumer opinion sites. The product sits on top of the company's existing Consumer & Media Insights research in the country and will be accessible through Nielsen's Clear Decisions platform, according to an announcement datelined Auckland.

In Short

Nielsen, a company best known for measuring what people watch, has started a new study in New Zealand that looks at how people go from first thinking about buying something to buying it and then telling others about it. It covers 30 kinds of purchases and checks which of more than 50 sources, such as TV ads, search results, social media or a friend's advice, played a part along the way. Advertisers, agencies and media companies can use the data to argue about where advertising makes a difference, although Nielsen has not said how many people are in the study or how their answers are collected.

What Nielsen launched

According to Nielsen, CMI Journey is "a new path-to-purchase research solution designed to help advertisers, agencies and media owners understand how consumer decisions are formed, influenced and ultimately converted into purchases." It covers 30 New Zealand consumer categories and more than 50 media touchpoints spanning paid media, earned media and owned media. Nielsen describes the result as a single dataset that "connects category perceptions, purchase triggers, evaluation criteria, conversion drivers and post-purchase advocacy into one unified evidence base."

The positioning against the company's existing product is explicit. Nielsen CMI, short for Consumer & Media Insights, "provides comprehensive insights into consumers' demographics, lifestyles, attitudes, behaviours and media consumption," according to the release. CMI Journey "extends that understanding to the decisions consumers make within individual categories and the media interactions that influence them." Nielsen calls it "a dedicated layer of path-to-purchase intelligence" built on the established CMI capabilities.

Put more simply, CMI answers who the customer is. CMI Journey is meant to answer why that customer bought, what nearly stopped them, and which media were present at each step. The release frames the difference in those terms, saying the product helps businesses understand "not just who their customers are, but why they make decisions, what influences them and when communications can have the greatest impact."

Five phases, from habit to advocacy

Nielsen contrasts CMI Journey with "research focused primarily on the point of purchase." The product instead examines what the release calls "five interconnected phases of consumer decision-making." The phases are described but not named, so the labels below are descriptive rather than Nielsen's own:

  • Before consideration: existing category experiences, perceptions, behaviors and brand associations, measured before a consumer starts actively looking.
  • Triggers: the needs, emotions, life events and other prompts that lead a person to consider a purchase.
  • Evaluation: how consumers research, compare options, seek recommendations and build confidence in a decision.
  • Conversion: the factors that turn consideration into action, which Nielsen lists as price, availability, convenience and purchase barriers.
  • After purchase: satisfaction, loyalty, recommendations and advocacy.

The sequence resembles a conversion funnel, with two additions at either end. One is the period before a consumer is in the market at all. The other is what happens after the sale, when a buyer either recommends a brand or does not. Both fall outside the click-to-conversion window that most digital attribution covers.

There is a tension in how the phases are presented. They appear in a fixed order in the release, yet Helene Maurer, Nielsen's Commercial Director for New Zealand, said in the same announcement that "consumers don't make decisions in a straight line." Nielsen's description of the phases as "interconnected" suggests movement between them, but the release does not explain how the product records a consumer who loops back from evaluation to triggers, or who skips a phase.

More than 50 touchpoints

The release names the broad groups of touchpoints but does not publish the full list. According to Nielsen, they span television, radio, streaming, online video, search, social media, out-of-home and retail environments, along with recommendations, word of mouth and consumer opinion sites.

That mix matters. Bought media such as television spots or search ads sit in the same dataset as influences that no advertiser can buy directly, including word of mouth and opinion sites. Nielsen says the connected view "helps identify the different roles media channels play throughout the purchase journey, from creating awareness and inspiring consideration to building trust, influencing selection and supporting conversion."

The 30 categories are not listed either. Maurer's comments offer the only examples. "Someone choosing an insurance provider will have very different motivations, information needs and media interactions compared with someone buying a car, planning a holiday or choosing where to eat," she said. Whether all four of those are among the 30 categories, the release does not say.

What the announcement leaves out

For a research product, the release is light on method. It describes "a robust research sample of New Zealand consumers" without giving a number. It does not state when fieldwork took place, how often the data will be refreshed, or whether the CMI Journey sample is the same group of people who answer the core CMI study or a separate one. A single-source design, where the same respondents report both their media habits and their purchase decisions, would allow different analysis from two samples joined after the fact. Nielsen does not say which approach it used.

What, then, counts as a channel's contribution? The release says CMI Journey reveals "how different media channels contribute to decisions before, during and after purchase," but it does not explain how a channel's contribution is established. Two broad approaches are possible: consumers can be asked which sources influenced them, or a statistical model can infer influence from patterns in the data. The two produce different kinds of evidence, and buyers of the data will need to know which one sits behind any claim that a channel "genuinely" influences decisions, to use Maurer's word.

Commercial details are missing too. There is no price, no date from which subscribers can query the data, and no statement on whether existing CMI clients receive access as part of their current arrangements. The Clear Decisions platform through which the insights will be accessible is named but not described.

The audience for the product suggests how it will be sold. Advertisers, agencies and media owners will all draw on the same category-level evidence, a structure that resembles syndicated research, in which a research firm designs and pays for one study and licenses it to many clients. The release does not describe the licensing terms.

The pitch to three buyer groups

Nielsen sets out a separate case for each group of clients.

For media owners, the company says CMI Journey "provides evidence of where, when and how their channels contribute to consumer decision-making across different categories." That, according to Nielsen, creates opportunities "to demonstrate media value beyond audience size and reach, strengthen advertising propositions and build more compelling, evidence-based conversations with advertisers." The argument is aimed squarely at channels whose effect is hard to see in click-based measurement. A radio spot, a billboard or a recommendation from a friend leaves no click for an analytics tool to record.

For advertisers, the product offers "category-specific intelligence on the motivations, triggers, evaluation criteria and barriers shaping consumer behaviour." Nielsen says that by identifying "where consumers progress, hesitate or abandon their journey," brands can find ways to refine communications, address customer experience gaps and support conversion and loyalty.

For agencies, CMI Journey is pitched as "a shared evidence base for strategic planning, client briefs, channel selection and campaign development." The release adds that category-specific journey insights and "consistent planning frameworks" can help pitch teams "build sharper proposals, support recommendations with evidence and develop compelling client narratives more efficiently."

The three uses pull in different directions. A media owner using the data to argue for its channel will be selling to advertisers and agencies who may hold the same dataset. Whether that produces agreement or more detailed disputes over what the numbers show will depend on how much of the underlying method Nielsen makes available to clients.

What Nielsen's executives said

Lucas Carreras, Nielsen's Executive Commercial Director for the Pacific region, framed the product as a link between audience data and sales. "CMI Journey represents an important evolution in how the advertising industry can connect audience intelligence with commercial outcomes," he said.

"Knowing who your customers are is only part of the picture. The real opportunity lies in understanding what drives their decisions, the moments that influence their choices and the role media plays along the way," Carreras said. He added: "By connecting consumer motivations, behaviours and media engagement across 30 categories, we're helping the industry move beyond audience reach to understand the moments that matter in influencing consumer decisions."

Maurer described the launch as a response to "a critical challenge facing New Zealand's advertising and media industry." She set out what each client group stands to gain: "For media owners, it's about demonstrating where their channels genuinely influence decisions. For advertisers, it's about identifying the triggers and barriers that shape purchasing behaviour. And for agencies, it's about turning those insights into sharper strategies, stronger briefs and more persuasive pitches."

"Ultimately, this is about giving the New Zealand market a much clearer understanding of how consumers make decisions, and how communications can play a meaningful role at every stage," she said.

Neither executive gave figures on the sample, the launch clients or the first findings.

What CMI has produced in New Zealand so far

Nielsen's CMI data has surfaced in PPC Land's coverage before, and the earlier examples show the gap the new product is meant to fill.

In August 2026, Nielsen used CMI to profile shoppers at IKEA's first New Zealand store, which opened in December 2025. According to that release, 243,400 New Zealanders had visited the store in the last month, based on a half-year CMI database covering the fourth quarter of 2025 through the first quarter of 2026. The data described who those shoppers were and what they consumed: 52% were heavy internet users and more than a third were heavy TV viewers. It did not show which of those media, if any, sent them to the store. That is the question CMI Journey says it can answer.

An earlier example came from the car market. In January 2025, Nielsen combined Ad Intel spending figures with CMI consumer data gathered between the fourth quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of 2024. That release put New Zealand's passenger vehicle advertising at $124 million in 2024, the seventh-largest category, and found that 22% of New Zealanders planned to buy a new vehicle within 12 months, up from 20% in 2023. That is a purchase intent measure: it records a plan, not the path from plan to showroom. Buying a car is one of the four decisions Maurer used to illustrate the new product.

Nielsen's position in New Zealand

CMI Journey adds to a set of Nielsen datasets that already shape how advertising is planned and traded in New Zealand.

On television, New Zealand's Television Broadcasters Group, made up of TVNZ and Sky, extended its Nielsen TV measurement contract for two years, covering July 2025 through June 2027. On advertising spend, Nielsen's Ad Intel service produces the annual ranking of the country's biggest advertisers. The 2025 edition, released on March 3, 2026, put Harvey Norman at the top, with telecommunications spend up 25% to $206.8 million and retail the largest category at $675.4 million, measured at published rate card values.

Nielsen has also tried to turn its consumer data into something advertisers can buy against. In September 2024 it launched Advanced Audiences in Australia and New Zealand, which lets buyers profile audiences in Nielsen's Consumer & Media View data and target those segments through demand-side platforms. In July 2026, it added a conversational AI layer to Ad Intel covering 5.5 million brands in more than 90 markets.

On paper, that gives Nielsen New Zealand data on who watched television, who spent on advertising, who consumers are, and now why they bought. The release does not say whether CMI Journey connects to the TV ratings, the Ad Intel spend data or the Advanced Audiences segments. Without such links, it stands as a planning and strategy tool rather than a measure of any individual campaign.

The launch also comes during a period of expansion for the company globally. In August 2026, Nielsen agreed to buy DoubleVerify for about $2.15 billion in cash, or $13.60 a share, with closing targeted for the first quarter of 2027.

Why this matters for marketers

The case for path-to-purchase research rests on the claim that buying decisions have become harder to trace. PPC Land's coverage this year has documented that claim from several angles. In April 2026, MiQ published a survey of more than 4,000 adults in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US in which 42% said their path to purchase feels "entirely random" and 87% said they switch digital activities at least once an hour. New Zealand was not part of that sample. Brainlabs, studying 3,000 purchase journeys in the US and UK in 2025, found that Google and Amazon appeared in 81% of journeys but accounted for only 45% of touchpoints.

Those figures point to a measurement problem. Platform reporting sees what happens on the platform. In October 2026, Funnel and Ravn Research found that 49% of 233 marketers surveyed rely primarily on platform-reported data and simple attribution, while only 9% described triangulated measurement. A category study such as CMI Journey offers a different kind of evidence: cross-media and category-wide, but detached from any single campaign or ad exposure.

For New Zealand media owners, especially in channels that do not generate clicks, the product offers a way to put their contribution in front of buyers in a common format. For advertisers, it offers a view of where consumers stall, which no single platform can show. Whether either use holds up will depend on details the announcement does not include: how many people were asked, when, and how the influence of each channel was determined.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Nielsen, through its Pacific and New Zealand commercial leadership, with Lucas Carreras, Executive Commercial Director for the Pacific, and Helene Maurer, Commercial Director for New Zealand, quoted. The product is aimed at advertisers, agencies and media owners in New Zealand.

What: CMI Journey, a path-to-purchase research product built on Nielsen's Consumer & Media Insights. It covers 30 consumer categories and more than 50 media touchpoints across paid, earned and owned media, and examines five phases from pre-consideration to post-purchase advocacy. Sample size, fieldwork dates, collection method, pricing and the category list were not disclosed.

When: The launch was announced on November 3, 2026.

Where: New Zealand, with the announcement datelined Auckland. Insights will be accessible through Nielsen's Clear Decisions platform.

Why: Nielsen says the product moves beyond audience profiles to show what drives purchase decisions and how media contribute at each stage. It gives media owners a way to argue for their value beyond reach, and gives advertisers and agencies category-level evidence on triggers and barriers, at a time when purchase paths are spread across more channels than platform reporting can see.