Peter Naylor Appointed Chief Client Officer at Nielsen

Nielsen has announced the appointment of Peter Naylor to the newly established position of Chief Client Officer. In this capacity, he will function as a primary liaison for the company’s extensive client base, which spans major advertisers, video publishers, streaming services, and broadcasters. His central responsibility involves ensuring that Nielsen’s measurement solutions effectively address the diverse requirements of its partners. Naylor will collaborate closely with internal sales, product development, and research divisions to help clients improve their business outcomes, reporting directly to Chief Executive Officer Karthik Rao.

Rao expressed strong confidence in the appointment, stating that Naylor’s background makes him ideally suited to advance Nielsen’s mission of creating a premier marketing intelligence platform. He highlighted the company’s ongoing progress in integrating big data with panel measurement, pioneering live streaming innovations, and advancing its AI capabilities. Rao emphasized that Naylor’s leadership experience across traditional television, streaming, and social media provides him with a deep understanding of evolving consumer and client expectations.

Naylor brings an unusually broad set of experiences to the role. He established himself early as a digital advertising specialist and joined Hulu in 2014 as Senior Vice President of Advertising. His career later included leading the Americas sales team at Snap and a significant role as Netflix’s first Vice President of Global Ad Sales, a position he assumed in 2022. His departure from Netflix in 2024 was viewed by many industry observers as indicative of the streaming service’s ambitious, and perhaps overly aggressive, initial pricing and volume strategy in the advertising sector, which reportedly clashed with the guidance of its seasoned ad executives.

Prior to his tenure at Hulu, Naylor managed NBCUniversal’s digital advertising sales operations and was responsible for the sales team handling NBC News’ digital properties.

Reflecting on his new role, Naylor noted his long history as a Nielsen client, a perspective he plans to leverage. He aims to assist partners in achieving greater success using Nielsen’s data while also conveying their needs back to the company to help develop superior, world-class products.

This strategic hire occurs during a period of heightened competition for Nielsen. The measurement giant, whose television ratings have long been the standard for most advertising transactions in the medium, now contends with emerging rivals like VideoAmp, Comscore, and iSpot. Major media entities, including Warner Bros. Discovery and NBCUniversal, have shown an increased willingness to explore measurement partnerships with these newer companies. All three competitors have successfully gained support from television networks and several prominent media-buying agencies that represent large advertisers.

Despite this competitive pressure, Nielsen continues to push its own advancements. The company secured accreditation in January for its Big Data + Panel national audience measurement technology. This system merges viewership data from smart-TV screens with insights from its traditional consumer panel. Sourced from millions of cable, satellite set-top boxes, and smart TVs across tens of millions of households, this vast dataset is being refined to provide a more comprehensive and accurate picture of audience behavior across linear TV, streaming services, and mobile devices. This accredited technology served as the foundation for transactions in the latest upfront advertising market and has been integral to television ratings reporting since the autumn.

(Source: Variety)