Dive Brief:

• Pandora has partnered with Moat for third-party measurement of its ads to ensure they meet viewability standards for the Media Ratings Council, as well as standards set by individual agencies such as GroupM, according to Adweek.
• The streaming music service is also working with Moat to add another metric to its measurement—“audibility,” or how long someone listens to an audio ad—to join the more familiar viewability standard.
• Chris Record, VP of revenue operations at Pandora, told Adweek that the audibility metric is still in the works and is not currently available right now.

Dive Insight:

The idea of audibility should intrigue advertisers and advertising platforms alike.

There has long been a debate over whether videos on social media work best with or without sound, and an audibility metric could help measure that. Facebook actively instructs its advertisers to create video ads with elements such as captions and other visual cues, with the expectation that most views will happen with the sound turned off, while Snapchat boasts that most of its video ads are viewed with the audio turned on.

Because Pandora is a music streaming platform and Moat is such as respected third party measurement firm, the two have the standing to create a new ad measurement metric that marketers can embrace.

"It's more conceptual now, and I think the biggest discussion in the market is around audibility against video offerings, but since Pandora is an audio platform, it's likely something that we'll drive innovation around in the future," Record told Ad Week. "We would really want to dovetail off of the audibility measurement for video and offer something that the market understands or can quickly relate to. We've had discussions and plans with Moat to bring that to market."

"We're thinking about audibility, time spent and engagement metrics—stuff beyond viewability," Record said.