ANA Advises Advertisers To Make 'Measurably Viewable' New Digital Ad Currency Standard

by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, April 27, 2015

In a move that could accelerate the shift toward so-called “viewable” ad impressions, the Association of National Advertisers this morning issued an advisory to its members, asking them to transition their digital investment strategies to pay for digital advertisements that are "measurably viewable." The request, which came during the CEO Bob Liodice’s opening remarks at the ANA’s Advertising Financial Management Conference in Phoenix, was described as a push to move digital ad spending toward a “minimum opportunity to see” standard.

The advisory cited the Media Rating Council’s Viewable Impression Guidelines as that minimum standard, which defines an online display ad as viewable with 50% of the ad’s pixels are in the viewable portion of a browser for one continuous second and a minimum of two continuous seconds for video ads.

“We also recognize that there are technical challenges in this transition phase,” Liodice said in a statement, adding: “However, the transition must be accelerated as marketers have a clear focus to pay only for what is viewable. This would put digital ad buying on a comparable foundation -- consistent with other forms of media buying.”

Importantly, the ANA called on its members to make viewable impressions a currency standard, with Liodice noting: “If an ad is not viewable, then the marketer should not bear the obligation to pay for it.&rdquo

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3 comments about "ANA Advises Advertisers To Make 'Measurably Viewable' New Digital Ad Currency Standard".

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Harold Sogard from The Hive, April 28, 2015 at 12:44 p.m.
How in the world does this new "standard" solve the viewability problem? Who in his right mind would consider defining as viewable the showing of only 50% of an image for only one second or less? I thought the notion of the power of subliminal advertising had been debunked ages ago. Imagine if the tv industry shifted to this same standard of viewing when charging for their time.

Hundreds of millions of dollars will continue to be wasted by advertisers (or, dare I say it, stolen by online properties) until this problem is truly solved.
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Don Scott from BH Media Group, Inc., April 28, 2015 at 1:35 p.m.

We need to move the industry forward. This is a good first step. Television, print, radio and OOH all have their own versions of "viewablity" issues. As digital moves down the road to greater viewability the revenue pulled from other media will be profound and the age old standard for branding, television, will need to become much more adept at insuring it delivers value.

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, April 28, 2015 at 6:42 p.m.

Here we go again. What is the viewability problem with TV, radio and magazines? You buy an ad "insertion" and it appears---or ir transmitted---- to the audience in its entirety. Its up to the ad to go the next step and capture the attention and interest of the audience. With digital, you think you are buying an ad insertion but in many cases the ad never appears on the user's screen or is truncated or otherwise rendered unviewable. That's not the same thing as TV, radio or print media. It's all well and good to state the obvious, namely that not everyone who has the opportunity to be exposed to a "legacy media" ad pays attention to it----but unlike many digital "ad impressions", at least they could have taken in the advertiser's complete message if they wanted to. As far as the ANA's mention of the MRC's "minimum standard"---or the "50 And 1 Rule" as I would call it--- that's not going to fly in terms of "comparability" with other media, unless digital ad sellers begin slashing their ad rates to account for the amount of "phantoms" in their audience stats.