MRC Considers Move to 100 per cent Viewable Standard

In New York, the Media Rating Council (MRC) is considering a change to its digital viewability standards, which would require 100 per cent of an ad's pixels to remain in view for one second, instead of the current 50 per cent for display and two continuous seconds for video.

In December, MRC released new standards for digital cross-media audience-based measurement, built on its prior work on viewable impression measurement and invalid traffic filtration requirements. These included the use of viewable impressions as the foundational measurement required for the inclusion of a digital ad exposure into an audience-based metric calculation.

MRC has now issued a call for research and input on two components of its standards for cross-media video measurement - duration and weighting - and the possible move to 100% pixels as a viewability criteria. The Council has already invited opinion from members of its Cross-Media Audience Measurement Standards Working Group, and is now extending this request to interested industry parties. These are invited to submit research to help inform the decision over duration weighting, and data to help more fully understand the impact of a move to requiring 100% of pixels as the threshold for viewability.

In a statement, MRC said it had initially intended its viewable impression standard to be a way to bring digital ad impression measurement closer to commonality with other media ad impression measurement, including that of TV. 'At the time, initial studies conducted by MRC when setting viewability thresholds showed that if the 50% pixels criteria were met, the entire ad was viewable in nearly 80% of the cases. The MRC expects that percentage is likely higher today, as properties are better optimized for viewability than they were in 2012, when the original pilot study was conducted. The new research request seeks data to update these understandings as MRC considers the requirements that will be associated with the minimum exposure qualifier thresholds necessary for inclusion in cross-media audience metric calculations'.

To submit research or data in response to this request, please contact Ron Pinelli at: rpinelli@mediaratingcouncil.org .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.