Rating Council Lifts Lid On ‘Viewability,’ Establishes Common Online Ad Currency

Media Daily News - , March 31, 2014

In a move that effectively establishes “viewable” impressions as the currency for online display and video advertising, the Media Rating Council today will lift an industry moratorium on the new metric. The move follows a period of review of the major third-party research supplier’s methods for calculating “viewability,” establishing a standard for comparing data from various vendors regardless of the methods they use.

Describing the new industry standard as a “common denominator in their viewability counts,” David Gunzerath, senior vice president-associate director of the MRC, said it was the result of a review of the disparate methods used by various vendors that “identified a half dozen reasons” why their viewability counts differ. The new MRC guidelines, he added, effectively “bring them into alignment.”

The resolution paves the way for establishing a true GRP — or gross rating point — metric for comparing online advertising buys against other media, particularly television, as well as calculating online’s contribution in cross-platform advertising campaigns and media buys.

The new standard defines an online ad impression as being viewable if 50% of its pixels are viewable to a user for one continuous second for a static display ad, or two seconds for an online video ad.

Gunzerath said the reasons for the differences emanate from the fact that various vendors have different reasons for calculating viewability and offering it as part of their solution. For example, some suppliers focus on “ad verification,” while others focus on audience estimates, and the differences in how and when they calculate viewability in their processes is what accounted for most of the differences.

Now that the MRC has lifted its advisory and issued recommendations on how to process a common viewability metric Gunzerath said a flurry of announcements are likely to be issued by the major vendors supplying viewability data. The result, he said, will be that “digital advertising will be in a stronger place,” because the standard will improve the perceived quality of measurement in the eyes of advertisers and agencies versus the other major media they buy.

“It opens the door for digital advertising to increase its share, particularly among [brand marketers],” Gunzerath predicted, adding, “We think this is a qualitative improvement that will certainly allow brand advertisers to better evaluate their campaigns.”

Following the MRC’s announcement, media audience measurement giant Nielsen announced a global deal to expand Integral Ad Science’s viewability data within Nielsen’s Online Campaign Ratings (OCR).

Advertisers Blend Digital and TV for Well-Rounded Campaigns

MAR 12, 2014 EMarketer

TV’s vast reach is part of appeal for digital advertisers

TV ad spending will grow at a fairly steady single-digit pace over the next several years. The growth rates are not exciting, but they are impressive given the sheer size of the market, according to a new eMarketer report, “US TV Ad Spending: Factors Shaping Today’s Television Market.”

TV will remain the dominant advertising channel, making up 38.1% of total media spending in 2014, and spending on the medium will continue to outweigh that of the nearest competitor—digital—through 2017, albeit with an increasingly narrower gap, until the balance tips to digital in 2018.

Numerous factors point to TV’s continued value to brand advertisers. These include TV’s sheer reach, the power and impact of big-screen advertising, and the predictability of TV’s audience.

Perhaps the clearest sign that digital and TV ad spending are not significantly cannibalizing each other is attitudinal: More and more marketers see the different channels as supplementing each other for a well-rounded campaign. For example, a September 2013 study from Forrester Consulting and Videology found that 52% of media companies, 68% of advertisers and 69% of ad agencies expected agencies to plan video ad campaigns holistically across all viewing platforms.

A September 2013 survey from Advertiser Perceptions suggested one reason for this approach. While 56% of TV ad buyers liked the idea of digital video ad convergence because it would give them a missing piece—digital’s better targeting and more robust metrics—54% of digital ad buyers looked to holistic advertising to gain more of TV’s core strength—vast reach.

TV scales for brand advertisers in ways that digital cannot (yet) match, giving them predictable results for their investments. Consistency on television can help it outstrip other media for gaining ad dollars.

Finally, TV ads tend to influence audiences more than ads in other media, providing impact along with reach and scale. The basic way to define such impact is the capacity to create a consumer or change consumer behavior.

Most audience members concur. In an August 2013 survey from AYTM Market Research, 83.7% of US internet users said TV commercials were the most effective form of advertising.


 

New Nielsen Data on Time-Spent in Front of Screens

Screen Time: TV Time-Shifted Viewing Rises Cross-Platform

by , March 4, 2014  MEDIA POST PUBLICATIONS

Traditional TV consumption rose ever so slightly when looking at live and time-shifted viewing.

On a monthly basis, Nielsen Cross-Platform Report for the fourth quarter of 2013 showed that traditional TV viewing was up over 170 minutes/12 seconds versus 168 hours/2 seconds. Live TV was at 155:32, down from 156:24, and time-shifted TV was up at 14:40 versus 12:38.

New mobile device usage continues to rise. For example, “watching a video on the Internet grew nearly two hours per month — 7:34 versus 5:54. The time spent watching a video on a smartphone climbed to 1 hours and 23 minutes from 1 hour per month.

Looking at average time over an average day for all media, live TV still commanded the most time: 5 hours and 4 minutes. Next was listening to AM/FM radio, 2:46; smartphone usage was at 1:07; Internet usage, 1:01; time-shifted TV viewing 32 minutes, using a game console, 12 minutes; DVD/Blu-Ray, 9 minutes; and “using a multimedia device,” 2 minutes.

While lower than the overall average of all U.S. viewing per month — over 170 hours of live and time-shifted TV — young viewers still give a healthy portion of their viewing to traditional TV. Live and time-shifted traditional TV per month comes in at more than 121 hours of TV for adults 18-24 and 147 minutes for 25-34.

The TV advertising group, TVB, says 18-24 viewers’ usage was up 1.7% year-to-year for traditional TV and nearly 16% with time-shifted TV on a monthly basis. TVB also says usage of the Internet on a computer for this group was down over 16%, and “watching video on the Internet” was down over 12%.

Overall, Nielsen says there have been downward trends of Internet usage on computers for all content for all U.S. media consumers — 27 minutes/44 seconds versus 29 minutes/23 seconds coming from fourth-quarter 2013 to fourth-quarter 2012. But smartphone use continues to rise — at 34 minutes/3 seconds against 27 minutes/22 seconds.

Mobile Video Audience Tops 100 Million In Q4, More Time On Mobile Web

by , March 5, 2014  MEDIA POST

Consumption of mobile video in the U.S. might best be described as wide but shallow. The number of people watching video on smartphones (ages 2 and over) in the fourth quarter of 2013 reached 101 million, up from 80.7 million in the year-earlier period.

Average time spent per user in mobile video increased 23% to one hour, 23 minutes per month — but still trailed well behind that of other media, according to the latest quarterly cross-platform report from Nielsen. Traditional TV is still easily the biggest time sink for Americans, at 155.32 a month, roughly the same as a year ago.

Starting with the fourth-quarter report, Nielsen noted that figures for mobile use and mobile video are based on metered data rather than survey-based insights.

“With this, we see some trend breaks as we migrate to a more precise and consistent reporting of mobile consumptions, one that is based on measured behavior,” stated Dounia Turrill, SVP, insights, Nielsen, in the study.

Time-shifted TV accounts for another 14:40, up from 12:38. One interesting development is the growth in time with apps or the mobile Web on a smartphone at the expense of time spent on the desktop Web. The former increased to 34:03 from 27:22 a year ago, while the latter dropped by almost two hours to 27:44 a month.

Likewise, the number of people using the Internet on a computer fell to 204.4 million from 212.4 million, while App/Web smartphone users jumped 30% from 111 million to 144.3 million in the last year.

The average time spent using a smartphone overall (among adults 18 and over) per month increased to 1:07 in 2013 from 53 minutes in 2012.

Nearly all the time (89%) spent on media among smartphone users is in apps, with the balance on the mobile Web. The same pattern holds in tablet use, where 81% of time spent is devoted to apps versus the Web. Women use both formats on tablets more than men, at 27:45 versus 22:41 in apps, and 6:30 compared to 4:07 online.

However, on smartphones there is less of a gender gap, with men spending 29:32 in apps compared to almost 31 hours for women, and both sexes even in mobile Web use, at about 3:45 a month.

In terms of other demographic trends, African-Americans and Hispanics consumed mobile media at higher-than-average rates. Both ethnic groups, for instance, watched about two hours of mobile video a month, while Asian-Americans came in at 1:39.

Whites, however, make up the vast majority of smartphone users overall at 70%, with 73% watching mobile video.

The biggest chunk (38%) of smartphone users by age fall into the 35-54 bracket, with those 25-34 making up 22%, and those 18-24 at 16%. People 55+ account for nearly a quarter (24%). Smartphone video users, again, broadly parallel those figures, although only 18% of those 55 and over watch video on their phones.

The time for watching video on a smartphone peaks between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. — similar to the peak times for TV and online video viewing. That suggests people are dividing their attention among screens during traditional TV prime-time hours.

What will media buying look like when TV and online video converge?

by , Yesterday, 1:03 PM

A steady stream of recent data illustrates continued torrid growth of video advertising relative to TV advertising, the difficulty of reaching certain demographic segments (particularly younger demos) via TV as they choose to consume their video content online, and the resulting importance of developing unified plans and buys for video and TV advertising.

Media industry forecaster Magna Global Intelligence recently projected that digital video advertising will grow 28 percent this year, a rate six times faster than the growth of the total US advertising market. Programmatic buying of digital advertising is growing at an even faster growth rate of 39 percent, according to Magna.

In response to this changing ad-buy landscape, prominent industry leaders like Nielsen and Adap.tv have recently developed tools that will allow marketers to more comprehensively develop and implement plans and media buys that align their TV and online campaigns.

As TV and online video converge, new opportunities will arise for both advertisers and publishers to reap the benefits of more precisely defined channels for message points to reach their intended audiences.

Yet like any industry-wide transition of this magnitude, a new set of obstacles arise. From fragmented audiences to incongruent technology and data to measurement challenges, marketers will need to learn the landscape and adjust accordingly.

These and other issues will be examined at prominent industry gatherings, such as MediaPost’s “Future of Media” forum in New York City on October 3.

They will also be the focus of the Adap.tv’s first annual Adapt Conference, taking place in New York on September 18. The event, which will feature insights from some of the industry’s most influential leaders, will provide a forum for information-sharing among senior executives. Perhaps more importantly, it promises to lead to solutions to the issues that are of greatest concern to marketers.

These include:

  • The evolution of agencies: How can agencies structure themselves to better align with a blended approach to TV and video ad trading.
  •   Opportunities for innovation and value: How a universal approach to data will be effective in audience buying and data-driven advertising.
  • Common measurement: The establishment of a measurement “currency” that is consistent for both traditional and online video advertising, and the importance placed on the two entities working together to devise a solution.

The Future of planning and buying: As the distinction between on-air and online TV viewing dissipates, what impact will it have on ad-buyers and their daily operations?
By delivering more specifically-defined target audiences, the TV/video evolution promises to benefit both advertiser and publisher, with more effective buys leading to stronger returns and, ultimately, greater profitability for those able to adapt.

 

Jay O’Connor, Chief Marketing Officer, Adap.tv

Like Angry Birds? You’re a swing voter

Like Angry Birds? You’re a swing voter.

Posted by at 12:08 PM ET, 08/09/2012
Ever wonder what sites we tend to visit most frequently on the Internet — you know, the series of tubes — say about our political leanings? Us too.

Now we have some answers thanks to a very cool project from Engage DC, a Republican consulting company with a digital focus.

The chart, a bigger version of which you can see here, is absolutely fascinating. (For more on the methodology, scroll to the bottom of this post.)

If you use Spotify to listen to music, Tumblr to consume content or Buzzfeed to keep up on the latest in social media, you are almost certainly a vote for President Obama.

If you buy things on eBay, play FarmVille or search the web with Bing, you tend to favor former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. (Google users tilt slightly toward Obama.)

The closest thing to a swing constituency in terms of web habits? For voters who are more politically engaged, it’s Pandora — the online music streaming site.

For the less politically engaged, the swing constituency is the game Angry Birds. So, that happened.

How did Engage DC do it? Here’s Patrick Ruffini, president of the company, explaining.

Over the past few months, we’ve crunched countless ‘Likes’ from thousands of users of Trendsetter, our first-of-its-kind platform that ties together polling, social influence data, and consumer preferences. We’ve used it to map the politics of the social web, analyzing the political partisanship of the user bases of various social properties. Using predictive modeling of Facebook likes, we tied political preferences and engagement to one’s choice of social media.

Great stuff.

 

Online Video Grabs More Ad Dollars, Marketers Favor Mobile Platforms

by ,

By any measure, video is commanding an ever-greater share of online ad dollars. eMarketer, for one, expects video ad spending to increase by 40%, this year, to reach $3.1 billion.

But, how are marketing execs allocating all that money?

A clear majority, 64%, said they plan to include smartphones in their spend, while more than 50% said they are likely to include tablets, according to new research from BrightRoll. A smaller share, 30%, said they are likely to include connected TV.

While BrightRoll’s 2011 survey revealed that video had become a staple of online ad buys, this year’s survey shows that advertisers are embracing the viability of a new digital video viewerscape across four unique screens: computers, smartphones, tablets and connected TVs.

The findings, according to BrightRoll CEO Tod Sacerdoti, also indicated that budget allocations may be based on the “maturity curve” — or how long video has been available on each screen, instead of analyzing what medium is most effective in achieving campaign goals.

Overall, the report indicated that 30% of respondents expect online video to have the largest increase in media spending this year.

On the growth front, 70% of respondents said that clearer ROI and better success metrics are still needed to increase digital video ad spending.

Showing just how far the medium has come, however, 64% of advertisers said that online video is an equally or more effective medium than TV. Respondents overwhelmingly selected targeting — 43% — as what their clients deem the most valuable aspect of online video, followed by reach: 28%.

More than half of respondents said they are more inclined to buy online video inventory from a network or exchange than anywhere else — that’s a 20% increase from last year’s survey. Also of note, behavioral targeting remains valuable to advertisers with 64% of respondents indicating their online video ads will be behaviorally targeted in 2012 — a 14% increase from 2011.

However, only 5% of respondents said GRP is the most important success metric, while 18% said they are most interested in seeing additional research on GRP measurement for online video buying.

 

 

 

FCC: TV stations must post rates for campaign ads

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission voted Friday to require broadcast TV stations to post online the advertising rates they charge political candidates and advocacy groups.

The vote came despite strong opposition from many broadcasters, who have argued that making sensitive advertising rate information so publically available will undermine stations’ competitiveness and give advertisers unfair leverage over how much they are willing to pay. A coalition of broadcasters put forth a compromise plan that would have required TV stations to put public files online while shielding information about political spending.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski rejected the compromise, noting stations already make available paper records of what they charge political advertisers. He said there was no reason such information should be “stuck in a filing cabinet” in an online world.

Genachowski and another Democratic commissioner, Mignon Clyburn, voted in favor of the new disclosure rules. Commissioner Robert McDowell, a Republican, voted in favor of an overall measure requiring stations to move their public files online but dissented on disclosing the political file.

The National Association of Broadcasters, a lobbying group that represents television stations, criticized the vote.

“By forcing broadcasters to be the only medium to disclose on the Internet our political advertising rates, the FCC jeopardizes the competitive standing of stations,” NAB executive vice president Dennis Wharton said in a statement.

By law, television stations offer political candidates advertising rates that are much lower than those offered to other advertisers. Stations also allow the public to review paper records of what they charge political advertisers.

But disclosure advocates say the process of retrieving the information is far too cumbersome, requiring interested parties to show up at the television station during office hours and photocopy many pages of records.

More important, advocates argue the public should have easy access to information about how much candidates and other groups are spending on television to lure voters.

“The Commission’s action is an important victory for transparency and accountability in our nation’s public policy, making broadcasters’ public files truly public,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center, which advocated for the change.

Network-affiliated stations in the top 50 markets will have six months to comply. For all others, the deadline is 2014.

YuMe and Nielsen Study Shows Impact of TV Plus Online Video Ads

Research study shows that reach, frequency, and recall are improved with mixed approach.
By
Posted on January 25, 2012

Online video advertising company YuMe has joined with media research and ratings company Nielsen to quantify the lift that consumer packaged goods (CPG) advertisers get when running campaigns that combine traditional television advertising with online video ads. The study found gains in reach, frequency, and recall.

YuMe used Nielsen’s TV/Internet Fusion service to track the impact of a $500,000 online video ad campaign that ran concurrently with a $2.6 million TV campaign. It found that the online ads increased reach for the targeted demographic (35- to 54-year-olds) by 7 percent. It also found that the online campaign extended the TV campaign’s reach by 6 million people in the key demographic.

The number of people seeing the campaign three or more times increased by 31 percent, the study found, when online video ads were combined with TV ads. The number of people seeing the campaign six or more times increased by 52 percent.

The study found that online video ads are more effective than TV for improving brand and message recall. Nielsen testing showed a brand recall increase of 22 percent and a message recall increase of 31 percent a day after seeing the ads.

“TV and digital ad planners can no longer operate in a vacuum in which online video advertising remains a silo apart from TV spend, because it fails to account for the fact that audiences are no longer stationary,” says Ed Haslam, vice president of marketing for YuMe. “Dual-platform campaigns offer demonstrable value and greatly outperform a TV-only campaign while improving overall cost efficiency.”

For more, download the free YuMe white paper entitled “Dual-Platform Campaigns: Using Online Video to Enhance the Reach and Performance of TV.”