• by P.J. Bednarski  @pjbtweet, March 11, 2014

The Interactive Advertising Bureau today will unveil an updated version of its Digital Video In-Stream Ad Metric Definitions and solicit public comment. The reworked version refines some terms and most notably, tosses out the word “view” as a metric -- basically because it is often confused with an "impression."

The new list also officially defines “skip” which describes what consumers do when they "click a button or use some other mechanism" to avoid an ad -- a word that, certainly, some executives would say needs no further amplification.    

Sherrill Mane, SVP of research for IAB, characterized the changes as a reflection of the concerns or questions from what she termed "grassroots” members who work every day with advertising terms and conditions.

“Situations change over time since things change so rapidly in this business, and we begin to get questions about this and that."

In an interview with Mane and Jessica Anderson, senior manager for advertising technology at IAB, Mane explained that the last time definitions were updated was in 2008.

“In Internet time,” Mane said, “that’s an eternity.”

The Digital Video Committee working group considered the changes, and made some that Mane said she doubts will cause much controversy. Click iab.net/digitalvideoinstream to download the document. Members also can contact adtechnology@iab.net to comment on the changes.

The enhancements include a clarification of the terms “ad expand/collapse,” which refers to an ad’s creative expansion behavior on screen, and differs from “expand/collapse” metrics which refers to a player’s behavior with an ad.   

With metrics, the IAB’s new definitions remove non-overlay and non-linear ads, mainly because they’re rarely used anymore.

And while its tosses out the word “view” as a term to measure video ads, it allows “creative view” to describe which video codec or technical version of an ad was used at which times. But used that way, the IAB committee made clear, "view" would not be measuring engagement.

Similarly, listed among additional modifications, the IAB calls for distinguishing between player metrics and ad metrics to distinguish between an ad’s performance measurement and a player’s interaction with the ad. The IAB said distinguishing which is which would improve ad performance analysis.