Give Nielsen some credit — although its Big Data Plus Panel measurement initiative this year has been fraught with problems for agencies using it to determine their upfront investments, they are using it, and it does represent the measurement company’s efforts to move just beyond panels. In fact, it almost feels to some observers like there’s a culture shift happening where once the company was intransigent about change.

On Thursday, Nielsen announced the first of what are expected to be a few moves toward determining outcomes in media consumption, as the industry aims to get a better idea of what advertising actually works rather than just whether viewers saw the ads.

Via a partnership with measurement firm RealEyes, Nielsen describes its Outcomes Marketplace as “an interoperable ecosystem for partner measurement that will bring together a diverse set of key brand, sales, attention and conversion metrics within the Nielsen ONE platform for the first time,” according to information provided by the firm.

It’s meant to enable advertisers to “have a more comprehensive view of an ad’s outcome alongside reach and frequency data,” the latter of which has long been Nielsen’s bread and butter. As Nichole Henderson, Nielsen’s gm of global campaign analytics, put it, Outcomes Marketplace represents the ability “to measure what truly matters: real business results.”

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