Nielsen NetRatings, BuzzMetrics & Six Sigma

February 23, 2008 |

THERE IS AN article in the latest issue of Fortune Magazine titled ‘Made to Measure’ (online version can be read here ) about former GE ‘mega-star’ CEO David Calhoun and his current post at Nielsen. The article is interesting to me from both an Online Marketing & Quality perspective partly because of Calhoun’s background at GE and also for what Nielsen has to offer in it’s subsidiaries Nielsen/NetRatings & Nielsen BuzzMetrics.

First the Quality stuff… If you don’t know by now, Jack Welch & GE took Six Sigma, developed by Bill Smith & Motorola, a turned it into a household name. The article on Calhoun talks about Welch as Calhoun’s mentor, golf buddy and Six Sigma now being imported into Nielsen to help turn the company around and make it profitable again. The other Six Sigma related part that may not be as obvious is in regards to the mention of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) who is one of the private equity firms that took Nielsen private in 2006. The Managing Director at KKR is Ken Freeman, former Chairman & CEO of Quest Diagnostics. Quest Diagnostics implemented a successful Six Sigma campaign in 2001 which remains a part of the culture today. Ken Freeman, along with Eric Mattenson, lead the Six Sigma charge at Quest so it’s probably safe to assume that Calhoun not only has the experience to implement Six Sigma at Nielsen, but also has the support from at least on of Nielsen’s investors.

And now the Online Marketing stuff… Nielsen, famous for it’s TV ratings, also has emerged as the leader in Online Marketing & Consumer research. Nielsen/NetRatings offers research and data on just about everything you could ever want to know about Online Marketing trends, competitive analysis, buyer behavior and more. Nielsen BuzzMetrics is a lesser known and seemingly forgotten subsidiary that focuses on consumer-generated media (like this fancy blog). Hopefully with the turn-around happening at Nielsen, both of these subsidiaries will continue to grow and expand to the point where they not only offer last month and month over moth data, but real-time data as well.

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