comScore and Google Partner to Offer Actionable Audience Metric for Brands

RESTON, Va., Feb. 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR) and Google are partnering to offer a real-time audience metric designed to help brand marketers easily measure campaigns across screens. After a period of testing, comScore vCE will be available to DoubleClick marketer and publisher clients, built into the widely used ad management platform. This partnership will be announced today by Neal Mohan, Google's VP of Display Advertising, during his keynote presentation at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting at 2:30 PM PT in Palm Desert, California.

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"We're deeply committed to creating metrics that are as meaningful for brands as the click is in performance advertising, and we have a number of efforts underway to provide actionable brand measurement," said Neal Mohan. "To accomplish this, we're investing in our own technologies as well as partnering with trusted industry leaders, like comScore. We look forward to working with them to give brand buyers and media sellers better access to real-time insights."

"This partnership between comScore and Google is much more than a simple technology integration between two industry-leading companies," said Serge Matta, President of comScore. "It allows us to radically simplify digital media buying for the industry, while enhancing quality and accountability. This directly addresses many of the everyday challenges that prevent our clients from investing further in digital."

comScore's vCE metric will be built directly into the DoubleClick ad server that publishers and marketers use to deliver their ads. It will initially be available in the U.S. later this year for desktop-based display and video ads, with eventual plans to expand the service for mobile and cross-platform. Upon the completion of its development, comScore and Google plan to jointly seek MRC accreditation for the service. comScore will continue to offer vCE independently of the DoubleClick platform, as well.

Partnership Improves Ease of Use, Cross-Screen Measurability and Actionability
This partnership will provide the following benefits to the media ecosystem:

1) Ease of Use
vCE data will be available within the DoubleClick platform, enabling advertisers and publishers to measure campaigns with a single click.

2) Cross-Screen Comparable Metrics at Scale
Cross-screen comparable audience delivery metrics – such as reach, frequency and GRPs – based on comScore vCE will be included in the DoubleClick platform. This provides clients immediate access to industry-trusted, neutral data that's directly comparable to TV and other traditional media.

3) Actionability
By offering comScore vCE directly in the ad server, marketers and publishers will have access to real-time audience insights – and the ability to act on those insights to improve campaign performance.

Industry Support for this Partnership
"What's exciting about the comScore-Google integration is the ability to leverage real-time cross-media comparable metrics and rich demographics within a single platform. For us, this means a level of simplicity and actionability that we haven't experienced before, and it's something that can help move multi-channel media planning, measurement and optimization forward in a major way."

- Jon Suarez-Davis, Vice President, Global Digital Strategy & North American Media, Kellogg Company

"This is a tipping point for brand advertising in the digital realm. As a vCE company, SMG strongly supports any effort to deliver comScore's campaign validation on a wider scale and with more workflow efficiency, and there is no platform that can better accomplish that than DoubleClick."

- Lisa Weinstein, President, Global Digital, Data & Analytics, Starcom MediaVest Group

"IPG Mediabrands already runs the vast majority of our digital campaigns through DoubleClick and we use vCE for validation, so this partnership helps streamline processes for us while ensuring the actionable real-time insights we rely on. Such a far-reaching strategic integration brings an ability to easily measure and optimize brand campaigns that can really propel digital advertising forward. We applaud both comScore and Google for striking this strategic partnership and look forward to helping them evolve this ever-growing ecosystem."

- Kristi Argyilan, President of MAGNA Global North America

"Today's announcement represents a commitment to transparency in digital advertising that will eliminate barriers to achieving greater scale and efficiency while rewarding content publishers who deliver on their promise of quality audiences. With many advertisers currently increasing their spend on display, video and mobile, it's important to have an infrastructure in place that allows them to spend with confidence."

- Scott McDonald, SVP Research at Conde Nast Publications

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in digital measurement and analytics, delivering insights on web, mobile and TV consumer behavior that enable clients to maximize the value of their digital investments. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including, but not limited to, expectations regarding the impact and benefits to comScore from its vCE family of products, financial or otherwise. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially, including, but not limited to: the features and characteristics of the products, the rate of development of the digital marketing intelligence, Internet advertising and e-Commerce markets; the growth of the Internet as a medium for commerce, content, advertising and communications; and the acceptance of new products and methodologies by the industry, including existing and prospective clients.

For a detailed discussion of these and other risk factors, please refer to comScore's most recent respective Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Annual Reports on Form 10-K and from time to time other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), which are available on the SEC's Web site (http://www.sec.gov).

Stockholders of comScore are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date such statements are made. comScore does not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements to reflect events, circumstances or new information after the date of this press release, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

SOURCE comScore, Inc.