After releasing its initial proposals in April, the Media Rating Council has finalized its new guideline relating to mobile ad viewability. The guidelines define minimum thresholds for measuring viewable impressions in mobile apps and on the mobile web. Under the guidelines, a mobile Viewable Impression requires a minimum of 50% of pixels to be in view for one consecutive second for display, and two consecutive seconds for video. The guidelines also state that a mobile ad must render fully before viewability measurement can begin. The MRC also included a new provision for reporting a metric called Sub-Second Impressions, which relate specifically to display ads in newsfeeds. While the MRC ultimately declined to create different viewability standards for such ads, the new metric recognizes that there may be certain cases when ads in newsfeed environments can be seen more rapidly. Sub-Second impressions are in continuous view for more than half a second but less than a full second. In a conversation with Cynopsis Digital, MRC Senior VP and Associate Director David Gunzerath discussed the importance of imposing viewability standards: “It removes non-viewable inventory from the equation,” he said, “and it allows people a better sense of the return on their marketing expenditures. It’s the viewable inventory that matters.” Defining impressions was only the first plank of 3MS, a joint initiative between the MRC, the 4A’s, the ANA, and the IAB. Gunzerath says he’s very glad to turn the page on viewability and move on to 3MS’s next areas of focus: establishing audience currency, creating a standard classification of ad units, defining ad performance metrics, and establishing brand attitudinal measures. “Now that we have viewability in place, we can start moving away from the success of the ad’s delivery, and more toward metrics that are concerned with the success of the ad’s messaging,” he said.
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