Pros
I worked in the consumer research side of Nielsen (Think Nielsen Games, BASES, Neuro etc). Pros: Good apprenticeship model, great way to gain exposure to multiple companies if you're early career, historically strong management
Cons
There's a lot here to unpack. The key one is salaries. Right now, it is impossible to break the 100K salary mark unless you have spent atleast 7-9 years within the company. This is a joke considering the number of firms that are able to hire out of college at that salary level. Overall salary level have been the same for the last 15 years in nominal terms not accounting for inflation. As a result, it is not uncommon to see the brightest and best leave within the first 2 years. Attrition at senior levels to more product oriented companies with actual growth plans (instead of where a -5% decline YoY is seen as something to cheer) is also very apparent, and anecdotally I've heard of people 2xing their salary out the gate with such jumps at a bare minimum - an indication of the scale of the problem. As a result, the only people who are left are by definition the ones who couldn't go anywhere else, or the ones who value the intangibles of the company (good work/life balance, strong sense of community) which also comes with caveats; work life balance has eroded significantly (think 40 hours weeks to 55 hour weeks over the past 5 years), and the community has - intentionally or not - become racially and gender insular, both from a hiring and a growth track perspective. The company also continues to stumble in actually meeting customer needs, allowing upstart startups (some of which were founded by ex-employees) to come in and capture significant share and growth. The business unit I was in has not seen any positive year over year growth in the past decade.