MRC Releases Guidelines for Mobile Ad Viewability Standards

onlinevideo.net

A note to brands and agencies that don’t like paying full price for a two-second video ad view on desktops: You’re not going to like what happens on mobile, either.

The Media Rating Council (MRC) issued preliminary guidelines for mobile viewability standards today, and, as far as we can tell, they’re no April Fools joke: The MRC suggests that a video ad on a mobile device be considered viewable if half its pixels are on-screen for two consecutive seconds. These do not have to be the first two seconds, the guidelines say.

For display ads, half the pixels only need to be on-screen for only one second. Banner ads with videos embedded within them count as display ads. As with the MRC’s desktop standards, viewability means an ad has the potential to be seen, not that it actually was seen.

These mobile recommendations are part of the MRC’s Mobile Viewable Advertising Impression Guidelines, which are now available for public review and comment. Download the 17-page PDF document. The MRC is accepting public comment between now and April 30, 2016. Email comments to Ron Pinelli, the MRC’s vice president of digital research and standards.

The MRC doesn’t make separate recommendations for ads that appear in a newsfeed, such as on Facebook. Instead, it says it will continue to analyze the data on newsfeed views between now and when the final version of the guidelines are published to decide whether or not there should be different standards. At the moment, the MRC doesn’t think different thresholds are necessary.

“The mobile environment is multilayered and still evolving,” says David Gunzerath, senior vice president and associate director for the Media Rating Council. “Developing a viewability standard for measuring the opportunity-to-see an ad in mobile environments requires substantial cross-industry input and the balancing of a wide range of interests. But once established, it will be a significant step forward for the digital marketing world, and will enable us to build upon these foundational metrics toward future advanced metrics that will more fully measure ad engagement and effectiveness.”C5