Nielsen got it wrong

AUCKLAND, Today: A lecture about M+AD’s “duty of care” and 200 words of pure PR-speak was the best we could get out of Nielsen Sydney when we sought answers to their “request” for us to publish a corrected version of its latest NZ Magazines Toplines graphic.

The original version ran in M+AD yesterday (scroll down for the link to today’s controversial updated version).

“We have identified an issue in the topline magazine results file that I provided you this morning,” wrote Nielsen’s Sydney-based marketing/comms director Jackie Helliker.

She declined – repeatedly – to provide further information about “the issue”, and refused to characterise it as “serious” or otherwise.

Nielsen declined to provide further information about ‘the issue’

“We both have a duty of care here and I’m concerned with the length of time it is taking for the article to be corrected from when I informed you earlier today that the information needed to be replaced,” she said sternly.

M+AD had written: “We’re happy to update the link – but we need to write about how this became necessary. We need to tell our readers what was wrong with the first one.”

Helliker’s response: “It does not reflect the information that had been agreed to be released to market. The original file included data that was ‘unreleased’. Unreleased data occurs each quarter and is deemed so due to the data being incomplete, under sample or otherwise. The correct file is the second version I provided.”

Huh?

• View the “corrected” file here