Dive Brief:

• A new survey from media buying technology firm Strata suggests that the Media Rating Council's recommended viewability standard, which calls for 50% of an ad's pixels to be in sight for two seconds, isn't enough for brand recognition. 
• According to the survey, 75% of viewers needed at least three seconds to identify a brand or product, and it took 44% of viewers about four seconds to recognize what they were seeing.
• "The challenge of measuring viewability across different vendors and multiple screens is an on-going challenge," Strata President Joy Baer said in a statement about the findings. 

Dive Insight: 

Strata's survey helps to show that MRC's suggested viewability standards may still need some adjustment. Companies like GroupM and Facebook have pushed for stricter viewability standards, and Stata's Baer is calling for an agreed-upon, industry-wide standard to better measure ad effectiveness over time.

The main takeaway for marketers is that while current industry standards might not serve as accurate viewability readings, according to the Strata survey, the way to catch viewers' attentions is with personalization and targeting. In fact, one-third of respondents said they would elect to watch an ad if it catered to their interests. And while MRC's goal isn't meant to solve brand recognition problems, it does try to improve viewability data to ensure advertisers aren't paying for ads that are never seen.