Dive Brief:
- Measurement company comScore announced it is offering clients a free viewability measurement per a company press release.
- The press release outlined that by providing the viewability measurement at no cost comScore is freeing up marketers’ dollars for deeper performance metrics.
- "IAB applauds comScore providing critical support for the digital ad industry's viewability standard. It is critical that this industry stop wasting time on unproductive arguments about baseline standards and start investing time on what really matters — the strategies, ideas, and executions that move hearts, minds, and wallets. The MRC standard for viewable impressions was agreed to and has evolved under consistent cross-industry participation.” said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO, Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), in the press release.
Dive Insight:
Viewability has always been a concern for digital marketers, and the metric itself has long been a hodge-podge of standards across platforms and measurement tools. Social media platforms tended to determine what is considered in-view for themselves, the Media Rating Council put out its own standard and some agencies such as Group M had their own set of viewability standards. In Group M’s case, more stringent than the MRC’s. As a result, brands have felt they have little clarity into whether or not the ads they are buying are actually being seen by consumers.
The public conversation around viewability shifted in January when P&G Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard made an announcement at the IAB Annual Leadership meeting that digital ad partners, such as social media platforms and Google, had to implement MRC accredited third-party viewability measurement by the end of the year or lose P&G’s ad dollars. Since then, there have been some grumblings that viewability isn't the right focus.
In February comScore was granted MRC verification for its mobile viewability measurement across display, video, mobile and in-app advertisements. By offering the measurement for free, comScore hopes to support its wide acceptance as a common baseline so that the industry can start to turn its attention to developing other meaningful measurements that can help encourage spend by providing marketers with a clearer indication of the effectiveness of their efforts.
