
Nielsen, a global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics, has identified for the first time the drivers of brand lift on emerging media, illuminating common factors that drive campaign performance.
While a body of research exists on brand lift drivers for traditional media such as TV, Nielsen's new research uncovers where advertisers can focus efforts to create more compelling initiatives for emerging media including podcast advertising, influencer marketing campaigns and branded content that positively impact consumer perception of their brands.
Nielsen explored more than 1,000 U.S. campaigns across podcasts, social media influencer content and branded content to pinpoint the five key attributes that move the needle for brands:
Brand recall
Enjoyability
Captivating
Relatability
Non-negativity
In aggregate, these five drivers offset the need to go viral to raise awareness with consumers. While virality helps grow reach and attention, Nielsen data suggests that content doesn't have to hit a virality goal to be successful with emerging media. Instead, advertisers should strive to achieve success in creating content that meets the key criteria uncovered in the research.
In addition to the five brand lift drivers identified in the research, Nielsen discovered key considerations for applying the brand lift drivers to campaigns:
Brand recall is critical. If audiences can't remember the brand after seeing an influencer ad, a branded content piece or hearing a podcast ad, then brand lift is very difficult to achieve. New media formats provide more opportunities for creativity than a traditional ad, but creativity without evoking strong recall is not enough to drive brand lift.
The four remaining factors - how enjoyable the content is, how captivating it is, how relatable it is and how well it avoids veering into negativity - are equally important to driving brand lift, further emphasizing how brands do not need to aim for virality or tolerate running alongside negativity to produce successful emerging media campaigns.
Brand lift is highly dependent on how strong the brand already is. Therefore, research systems must take the context of brand strength into account when comparing to normative data. Otherwise, advertisers risk deprioritizing good content on leader brands or prioritizing bad content on challenger brands.
These newly-identified brand lift drivers for emerging media provide advertisers deeper insights and unprecedented comparability for new media channels, said Arica McKinnon, Vice President, Campaign Analytics, Nielsen. This represents a huge step for advertisers to be able to leverage these fresh insights to critically evaluate their campaigns and make adjustments to reach consumers where they're spending an increasing amount of time.
Marketers have known emerging media can be impactful for their campaigns, but many have lacked the tools to measure its distinct impact within these growing channels, said Mae Karwowski, CEO of Obviously, an influencer marketing agency. New research and insights are critical for helping demystify these channels and show ROI in investing ad dollars in this space.
The emerging media brand lift research detailed in this report is based on analyses from more than 1,000 studies of measured brand lift from U.S. ad campaigns across podcasts, social media (influencer marketing) and branded content. The 1,000+ studies spanned 10 categories, including CPG, retail, automotive and financial services. Download the report here.
Press Contact: Landon Oakum
Senior Communications Manager
landon.oakum@nielsen.com
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
18/11/2025
KEIZER, Ore. Municipal broadcaster Keizer City Television, K23 TV, has deployed four Telycam PTZ cameras to upgrade the visual quality of its live meeting cover...
18/11/2025
STAMFORD, Conn. NBC Sports and Peacock have announced that they are working for the second consecutive year with the National Football League, EA Sports and Gen...
18/11/2025
LONDON A new Ampere Analysis study finds that familiar franchises are successfully driving kids' TV consumption on Netflix and that the streamers big bet on...
18/11/2025
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. TV viewers continue to find it challenging to find relevant programs in the fragmented universe of streaming content, according to new findings...
18/11/2025
20 Bob Dylan Songs That Reflect a Legacy of A-Changin On the heels of Bob Dylan receiving a Berklee honorary doctorate, we take stock of one of the most singu...
17/11/2025
EA SPORTS Madden NFL Cast to Return Thanksgiving Night With Immersive, Data-Driv...
17/11/2025
Behind the Broadcast Booth: Impact Ventures' Greer Christian on Building Her...
17/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Sportradar's Brian Josephs Talks Peacock's Powerful Perfor...
17/11/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Greg Gumbel, Iconic Voice and Comforting ...
17/11/2025
ESPN, Pixar, the NFL, and Beyond Sports Team Up for ESPN's Dec. 8 Monsters,...
17/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: EA SPORTS' Evan Dexter on How the EA SPORTS Madden NFL Cast...
17/11/2025
Cast your votes and sail into 2026 with the return of SBS's the Chillest 100
17 November, 2025
Media releases
Voting is now open for Australia's ul...
17/11/2025
When VSI Group, one of the world's leading localisation providers, set out to modernise its complex, multi-site operations built through years of acquisitio...
17/11/2025
Dealmaking for broadcast stations continues to heat up, with Sinclair reporting it has built up a 8.2% stake in E.W. Scripps and has been talking with Scripps f...
17/11/2025
The worlds online population grew by more than 240 million people in 2025, according to Facts and Figures 2025 released today by the International Telecommunica...
17/11/2025
ASB GlassFloor, the leading provider in LED sports flooring, today announced the opening of Athletes Lab 2.0, a premier athletic training facility designed to e...
17/11/2025
SmallHD today announced the release of its popular Camera Control for Canon cinema cameras. This new integration enables filmmakers to adjust critical camera se...
17/11/2025
Luxury is in the details, and no one captures that better than the creative team at Samuel & Sons. As the visionaries behind iconic photography and advertising ...
17/11/2025
NVIDIA Apollo - a family of open models for accelerating industrial and computat...
17/11/2025
To power future technologies including liquid-cooled data centers, high-resoluti...
17/11/2025
At SC25, NVIDIA unveiled advances across NVIDIA BlueField DPUs, next-generation networking, quantum computing, national research, AI physics and more - as accel...
17/11/2025
Across quantum physics, digital biology and climate research, the world's researchers are harnessing a universal scientific instrument to chart new frontier...
17/11/2025
It used to be that computing power trickled down from hulking supercomputers to ...
17/11/2025
17 Nov 2025
VEON Commences USD 100 million Buyback Program Dubai, November 17, 2025: VEON Ltd. (Nasdaq: VEON), a global digital operator ( VEON or the Compan...
17/11/2025
Monday 17 November 2025
Sky brings top comedy talent to screens with new stand-up specials
Sky and streaming service NOW are bringing audiences a fresh dose o...
16/11/2025
L3Harris to deliver advanced electronic warfare systems quickly for worldwide F-16 programs...
16/11/2025
Upgrading your Apogee Symphony MKII from TB2 to TB3: Need to Knows Upgrading your Apogee interface to Thunderbolt 3 isn't difficult - but it's not a cas...
16/11/2025
Apogee Electronics Acquired by Dirk Ulrich's Rockforce Tech Holding, Parent ...
15/11/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The Walt Disney Company and YouTube TV have reached a new multi-year distribution agreement, ending a carriage dispute that had blacked out ABC,...
15/11/2025
PLYMOUTH, Wis. A group of about 20 TV technology vendors supporting NextGen TV are wrapping up their ATSC 3.0 Interop here at Heartland Video Systems headquarte...
15/11/2025
NEW YORK NBCUniversal has announced that it will be launching NBC Sports Network (NBCSN), a 24/7 linear network featuring a wide range of marquee sporting event...
15/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has released an updated agenda for its Open Meeting on Thursday, November 20, 2025, which is scheduled to comme...
15/11/2025
JERSEY CITY, N.J. OpenVault has released new data showing that DOCSIS 3.1 and higher services are driving significant across-the-board increases in speed and co...
15/11/2025
ATLANTA Gray Media has concluded an agreement with the Ohio Valley Conference ( OVC ) to broadcast OVC college basketball games across 20 Gray markets in five s...
15/11/2025
NEW BERN, N.C. Wheatstone has named company veteran Darrin Paley vice president of business accounts, effective immediately....
15/11/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Serves Up the Trailer for Dining with the Kapoors'...
14/11/2025
Op-Ed: The Automation Imperative - Why AI Is the Only Scalable Defense Against L...
14/11/2025
FutureSPORT 2025: Caretta Research on why streaming won't save broadcasters By Jo Ruddock
Monday, November 10, 2025 - 14:37
Print This Story
Caretta R...
14/11/2025
Daneysse Daniels, Emmy-Winning Production Manager and Beloved Teammate at TNT Sp...
14/11/2025
The NBA 2K League Returns as an Immersive Entertainment Ecosystem' With Non...
14/11/2025
Inaugural SVG LIVE! Conference Brings 250 Top Sports and Entertainment Producti...
14/11/2025
(L-R) Suzette Quintanilla, Isabel Castro, and Chris P rez attend the 2025 Sundan...
14/11/2025
This week, Casa Spotify lit up Las Vegas with an unforgettable celebration of Latin music and culture ahead of the 26th Annual Latin Grammy Awards. Hosted at th...
14/11/2025
Boston Conservatory Orchestra to Perform at Carnegie Hall for United Nations Gen...
14/11/2025
Berklee Alum Lewis Pickett Wins Record of the Year at Latin Grammy Awards Pickett, a 2009 graduate, was nominated six times across three categories at this ye...
14/11/2025
PLYMOUTH, Wisc. A group of about 20 TV technology vendors supporting NextGen TV are wrapping up their ATSC 3.0 Interop here at Heartland Video Services headquar...
14/11/2025
What if your idle operations centers, inactive cloud time, staff or you as a freelancer could start generating revenue tomorrow?
NECF Corporation today announc...
14/11/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, today announced that it has been recognized as a Major Player in the IDC MarketS...
14/11/2025
The recent ADAC RAVENOL 24h Race at Germany's legendary N rburgring circuit marked a milestone for live broadcast production, and Clear-Com played a pivota...