ReachTV enables airport ad measurement with Nielsen ONE Ads

Four days ago, on April 14, 2025, ReachTV and Nielsen announced a significant partnership that enables advertisers to measure campaign performance across airport screens for the first time. This integration connects airport advertising with broader cross-media measurement capabilities, addressing a long-standing gap in audience analytics.

The partnership represents the first time that advertisers and agencies can directly compare campaign performance on ReachTV to other publishers across screens via Nielsen ONE Ads. This development arrives at a critical juncture for marketers seeking more comprehensive measurement of audiences that were previously difficult to quantify.

According to the announcement, ReachTV currently reaches more than 50 million travelers monthly through its network spanning 90+ airports in the United States. The free ad-supported streaming television network delivers content across 2,400 airport gates and 750 venues, while also reaching travelers through 500 million mobile and connected devices.

The integration addresses several technical and strategic challenges that have historically complicated airport audience measurement. Prior to this partnership, the "on the move" audience segment remained largely opaque to advertisers seeking to understand cross-platform performance.

Paul Krasinski, Chief Strategy Officer of ReachTV, highlighted the unique nature of their audience. "ReachTV offers a very unique and desirable audience for brands, reaching people on the move among our 2400+ gates and 750+ venues in airports and 500M+ mobile/connected devices. As consumers watch live sports and original content throughout the airport journey – from a restaurant, to the gate, to the in-flight experience via wifi, Nielsen is capturing our 'on the move' audience to be discoverable as digital monetizable inventory, through an innovative integration between our services," said Krasinski.

The technical implementation integrates ReachTV into Nielsen ONE Ads, which provides deduplicated audience metrics across linear, streaming, and digital platforms. This integration enables advertisers to measure how ReachTV contributes to their broader media strategies, particularly for live sports programming.

The partnership includes the integration of Nielsen Media Impact, a media planning tool that allows buyers to craft more effective plans across platforms. The tool enables budget optimization, analysis of scenario planning, and evaluation of share shift between different media types.

Nielsen Media Impact provides two primary modules. The Insights Module analyzes granular data about consumer media behavior to identify optimal platforms for audience engagement. The Planning Module allows for optimization of media allocation, testing of planning scenarios, and evaluation of GRP flights, weights, and budgets.

For media buyers, Nielsen Media Impact addresses critical questions about which channels reach target audiences most effectively, how audience reach overlaps across channels, and how budget changes might impact sales outcomes. For media sellers like ReachTV, the tool helps demonstrate the value of their platform compared to competitors and illustrates how their inventory contributes to campaign reach.

Amilcar Perez, Chief Revenue Officer at Nielsen, emphasized the importance of integration in the current media landscape. "In the evolving digital landscape, where there are more options than ever, advertisers must be able to quickly discover, evaluate, plan and execute personalized interactions with consumers with efficiency. Integrating ReachTV into Nielsen ONE Ads unlocks a significant piece of the consumer puzzle, providing much-needed clarity of the Travel Consumer Audience, and ultimately helping advertisers make the most informed decisions as they plan and measure their cross platform and publisher campaigns," said Perez.

The technical foundation of Nielsen's measurement approach relies on person-level data from panels, combined with what Nielsen describes as "the industry's largest big data footprint." This methodology provides coverage across digital, linear, streaming, and connected TV (CTV) environments.

Nielsen ONE delivers metrics built on an identity system designed specifically for measurement. The system is calibrated with Nielsen's panels to provide the scale necessary for measuring customized audiences while reducing bias in raw data feeds.

ReachTV's content portfolio includes partnerships with major sports leagues and media brands, including the NFL, the NBA & WNBA, TikTok, LIV Golf, ACC Football, ACC Men's & Women Basketball, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Business Traveler, Billboard, Nexstar Media's CW Network, Stage Access, Drone Racing League, and the Harlem Globetrotters.

The significance of this partnership extends beyond the immediate technical integration. Historically, airport advertising has operated as a somewhat isolated medium within broader marketing campaigns. While the environment offers high-value audiences, the lack of standardized measurement has complicated its inclusion in data-driven media planning.

For marketers, particularly those in luxury, business services, travel, and technology sectors that heavily target airport audiences, this integration provides several concrete benefits. First, it enables attribution of airport media within the broader marketing mix. Second, it allows for optimization of frequency across channels when targeting the same consumer. Third, it provides insight into the incremental reach that airport media delivers against specific audience segments.

Nielsen's comprehensive approach to audience measurement continues to evolve alongside changing media consumption patterns. The company's methodology combines panel data with big data sources to capture viewing across platforms. This dual approach aims to address both scale and accuracy concerns in cross-platform measurement.

The integration comes at a time when advertisers are increasingly demanding unified measurement solutions across fragmented media environments. Airport environments represent a particular challenge for measurement due to their transient nature and the diversity of screens and platforms available to travelers.

From a technical perspective, Nielsen ONE is structured to provide three primary capabilities: audience planning, cross-media measurement, and outcomes analysis. The audience planning functionality allows advertisers to leverage first-party and third-party data for targeting. The measurement component delivers deduplicated metrics across platforms. The outcomes functionality connects advertising exposure to business results, providing return on investment analysis.

The Nielsen ONE platform is designed to consolidate previously scattered solutions into a single connected experience. This integration enables users to define audiences, build campaign scenarios, measure performance, and optimize delivery from a unified interface.

For the marketing industry broadly, this partnership exemplifies the ongoing push toward more comprehensive audience measurement across previously fragmented environments. As consumers increasingly move between devices and platforms, measurement solutions that can provide a deduplicated view of engagement become increasingly valuable.

The collaboration demonstrates the technical feasibility of integrating specialized media environments like airports into broader cross-media measurement frameworks. This integration model could potentially extend to other out-of-home environments that have historically operated with separate measurement approaches.

Nielsen continues to innovate in audience measurement technology, addressing the challenges of an increasingly complex media landscape. The company's approach combines panel-based measurement with big data analytics to provide comprehensive coverage across platforms.

The announcement signals Nielsen's continued effort to extend measurement capabilities across all environments where consumers engage with content. This strategy responds to advertiser demand for more unified approaches to planning, measurement, and attribution.

Timeline of the ReachTV-Nielsen Partnership

• April 14, 2025: ReachTV and Nielsen announce their partnership to enable cross-media view of ad performance
• Current: Integration of ReachTV into Nielsen ONE Ads platform begins
• Current: Implementation of Nielsen Media Impact for media planning
• Ongoing: Nielsen continues development of comprehensive cross-media measurement solutions
• Future: Potential expansion of airport media measurement to additional venues and platforms