Tags containing: "viewability"

The Big Four: Challenges We Must Face as an Industry

January 29, 2015 Jason Kint, CEO – DCN

I could not be more thrilled at the enthusiasm for great content across the media industry— whether in the advertising, press, investment or journalism communities. That enthusiasm was never more apparent than at the 13th Annual Digital Content Next Summit last week, which gathered senior executives from across our membership to explore opportunities and innovation. We also came together to tackle challenges. And, in my opening remarks for the Summit, I captured four common themes that challenge content companies as they strive to reach their full potential in the digital transformation:

1. Pressures on display advertising.
The flat to declining ad prices, which have resulted from abundant supply, have triggered a downward spiral that can only be slowed by the quality dimension. The transition to viewability will help, but the viewability conversation is mired in a malaise of too many inconsistent ad solutions and buyers taking advantage of the transition.

Fraud in the digital display chain is also massive problem: It tops the list of marketer concerns. And let’s not forget about the shift to mobile, which continues to accelerate. This shift is a good thing because it provides opportunities for personalized, useful content experiences. But we need to keep in mind that ad pricing on mobile is 30% of that on tablets and desktop.

The result, which I wrote about in The Trust Principle, is a marketplace that is mostly bought and sold on direct response without value for environments and brands. Google, Facebook and countless intermediaries have swallowed up the roughly 65% growth in digital advertising that has taken place in the past three years, while content companies’ revenues have remained flat overall.

2. The Attention Economy.
It’s in full swing. We now have the opportunity to consume media 24/7 on countless devices, unleashing significant opportunities for content companies.

Here’s the rub: Anyone can be a media company. Individuals now compete with century-old institutions. Non-profits go head to head with for-profits. The competition is fierce whether the company is pre-revenue, or raking in billions.

I would argue the goal of capturing a consumer with 30 minutes of entertainment once a week is dead. Capturing 30 minutes each more morning with a newspaper is dead. Now we’re all trying to get a consumer to come by for a few minutes each day. We must provide a service to them—whether it is entertaining or informing and make sure to use their time well.

3. Business model innovation.
The days of brainstorming non-advertising revenues as an opportunity are gone. It’s now a requirement to innovate your business model. Companies can’t simply compete by attracting mass audiences and serving ads against them. Being a great media brand is not enough. Today, organizations of any size or longevity need to think like start-ups and continuously experiment and innovate.

Yes, brands must own the relationship with individuals and monetize that relationship through advertising, but also in countless other ways to bring value back to their business—by delivering value to their user.

4. Protect our art.
Data is all the rage, but it is art that defines us. Whether it be the journalism and free speech we fight so hard to protect, or copyright and content piracy, this so-called “content” is precious stuff. It is why consumers rely on us, and trust us and it is how we get to know them in the process. So yes, protecting our first party data (which comes out of customer relationships, as well as those with marketers) is also essential. But we build our businesses on this art and we need to protect it to make sure we can continue to fund and pay for it in the future.

Big challenges: Hell yes. But we are facing them as an industry, together.

Hit me up on Twitter (@jason_kint) if you want to dive deeper into any of these challenges or if there are others that you think we need to focus on.

Perspectives

The Biggest Challenges Digital Media Faces in 2015

January 5, 2015 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

We asked a few of our members:
What do you think will be the most significant challenge for the business of digital media in 2015?

Here’s how they replied:

In 2015, I expect that most brands with a mobile presence will create offerings that better meet customer needs on the go. Presently, most mobile experiences simply mirror the desktop experience, but when we’ve reviewed customer insights we can easily see that behavior is different on the mobile platform. I predict that there will be a marriage of “big data” and mobile that allows marketing and product development departments to really grasp the opportunity to create meaningful and relevant mobile moments. This will require innovation, skill and the thoughtful application of user data, but it will be well worth the effort as it will generate more loyalty for the brands that do it well. Especially as mobile continues to grow to its inevitable domination of the online experience, we all need to be paying special attention to what more we can be doing to meet customer needs in this unique space.

—Michelle Denogean
CMO, Edmunds.com
@michadv2000 @Edmunds

According to the ANA, the marketing term of 2014 was Programmatic. There is no doubt that Programmatic is important and here to stay; however, consumers don’t follow programmatic. They don’t get excited about programmatic or curl up with programmatic…they do that with content. In 2015, it is time for content to get back in the driver’s seat. Premium content should never be viewed as a commodity and top publishers should be sending that message in every meeting they have.

—David Morris
Chief Client Officer, CBS Interactive
@CBSi

The biggest challenge for the digital industry is proving the efficacy of display advertising. Digital still remains the most measurable and trackable form of mass media and with the right metrics and methodology, it can provide marketers with much more insights than other media. But due to the oversupply of ad inventory, unscrupulous tactics by publishers and marketers to force feed ads down users’ throats, and the lack of progress the industry has made to show effectiveness beyond sheer click thru rates, we are at a critical juncture where we need to change how we do business. The scale, efficiency and targetability of digital still makes it an incredibly powerful tool for marketers. But publishers need to work harder to prove that digital ads “work’” and rethink some of the age old practices that have led to user blindness.

— Brian Colbert
CRO, About.com
@aboutdotcom

The challenge in 2015 will be around standardizing measurement for ad viewability. Right now, there are so many different sources to obtain campaign data, much of which lies with agencies; however, some of this lies with publishers and with third parties. There’s no real consistency on how the overall industry measures results. The publishing industry is working hard to deliver the maximum value to advertisers for their investment. The issue we all face is how to move forward efficiently without getting bogged down in the act of reconciling the various measurement services.

—Mark Howard
Chief Revenue Officer, Forbes Media
@markdhoward @Forbes

Finding the right way to structure the product management function in the organization. As we saw several times in 2014, media companies struggle with this. It’s easy to see why: product management works across editorial and commercial, to focus on the users’ needs, the business’s goals and the organization’s capabilities. Helping editors understand product managers and vice versa and teaching them to work well together is absolutely essential for the success of digital media.

—Eric Hellweg
Managing Director, Digital Strategy,
Harvard Business Review
@ehellweg @HarvardBiz

The most significant challenge for digital media advertising in 2015 will continue to be dealing with the operational issues that need to be addressed as more advertising moves through programmatic channels. Publishers need to understand how to get the greatest yield from this channel of demand while evolving custom programs that can deliver value and performance beyond what can be bought and sold on the open market—with enough scale to make it worth the marketers time to consider. Marketers need to master the tech stack and techniques required to get real value from programmatic buying but not become so consumed by the complexities that they miss out on other digital advertising opportunities that can offer greater value.

—Mike Kisseberth
CRO, Purch
@mikekisseberth @PurchGroup

Industry-Research

IAB Hosts Discussion of its State of Viewability Transaction 2015 Position Paper

December 19, 2014 Research Team—DCN

IAB held a call to discuss its new State of Viewability Transaction 2015 position paper. In addition to reading out the principles outlined in the paper, Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of IAB, and Sherrill Mane, SVP of Research, Analytics and Measurement at IAB answered questions from the call participants.

Below are the topics addressed along with key insights from the discussion.

Scope of the principles:

IAB principles do not specify who should be responsible for covering the cost of viewability vendor services.
The issue of fraudulent traffic is outside the scope of the viewability discussion, although these issues do overlap at times. TAG (Trustworthy Accountability Group) was created specifically to address the issues of fraud.
The principles apply to desktop (display and video) transactions and do not cover mobile.
IAB is not making any recommendations on how viewability should affect pricing.
IAB generally limits the principles to measurable impressions – some formats, e.g. sponsorships, cannot be measured and are thus outside the scope.

How IAB arrived at the 70% viewability threshold for measured impressions:

As the position paper specified, the core aspiration of the 3MS initiative was to have 100% of traded impressions be deemed viewable by the MRC. IAB consulted a group with the IAB board (primarily composed of sellers), who have recommended that a 70% viewability rate was achievable at this point in time. IAB recognizes that 70% will be difficult for some publishers, but they think this is achievable. At the same time if a publisher thinks that they can do better than 70%, IAB encourages them to do so.

Dealing with unmeasurable impressions:

IAB has cautioned against extrapolating any metrics from the measurable impressions to unmeasurable impressions.
As per the example to principle 3 in the published position paper, unmeasured impressions should be billed for as fully viewable impressions (though not contributing towards the 70% viewability threshold for the measured impressions).

Next steps IAB will be undertaking to pave the road to 100% viewability:

IAB has assembled an additional group of leaders to monitor the impact of viewability on publishers and course-correct if necessary (as the position paper specified, IAB are looking to revisit the principles at least twice a year).
The industry is not yet at a level of sophistication where there can be a standard test suite that is run across all vendors to establish measurement consistency. IAB is working with the MRC and is encouraging its members to share data with the MRC to help them address the variability in measurement rates between vendors.

Impact on agencies:

IAB thinks that the 100% viewability guarantees demanded by some of the agencies are unreasonable and will only hurt efforts to collaborate and fixed measurement throughout the system.
Asked how IAB would recommend agencies to communicate to clients the endorsement of paying for 30% of inventory that was not viewable, Rothenberg advised agencies to always reference the MRC “Viewability Implementation Considerations”, issued on 16 October 2014, which state that 100% viewability is an unreasonable expectation at this point. Rothenberg advised agencies to educate clients on the current technological limitations of this space and the need to absorb the discrepancies in measurement.

Advertising | Perspectives | Revenue

IAB Says 100% Viewability Measurement is Not Yet Possible

December 16, 2014 DCN

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) today released the “State of Viewability Transaction 2015,” a position paper offering the digital media and advertising industries guidance on how to manage the shift of digital media’s “audience currency” to 100 percent viewability. During this ‘Year of Transition,’ the IAB recommends 70% as the best threshold for buyers and sellers (upping the standard from 50%, which the Media Rating Council (MRC) called for in March of this year).

To foster stronger collaboration and build trust throughout the entire media ecosystem, the IAB recommends that marketers, agencies, and publishers adhere to seven principles during 2015, which it outlines here.

“The entire industry came together to provide true accountability through a single viewability measurement. At this point in time, it’s critical that all parties adhere to the MRC standard and provide for a period of transition while the systems catch up. On behalf of all premium publishers, I commend the IAB’s shepherding the industry through this phase.”

—Jason Kint, CEO, Digital Content Next

Read the IAB’s entire “State of Viewability Transaction 2015” statement.

Perspectives

Defining Bricks to Build the House of Time and Attention

October 29, 2014 DCN

This year may go down as one of the most pivotal years in the digital revolution as we transition into an AV world (After Viewability).

Vivek Shah, CEO of Ziff-Davis and Chairman of the IAB did a terrific job earlier this month at IAB MIXX and in a WSJ op-ed reinforcing why viewability is critical, while also explaining the important work that still needs to be done. This coincided with the reconvening of the Blue-Ribbon Committee (which I served on in its first phase to define the standard). It also led to the MRC’s advisory to media, which included these important guidelines:

If an impression’s viewability can’t be measured, then it doesn’t mean it’s not viewable or worthless;
It is not realistic (or even possible) to expect 100% viewability so there needs to be a more a measured set of expectations during this complex transition. As Vivek stated, no other media has attempted this level of measurement.

Publishers can’t bear the cost of the entire transition and, as such, the agencies using this opportunity as a price-negotiating tactic are doing a great disservice to the industry, their clients and publishers. Additionally, any marketplace confusion is not helpful in establishing this new currency. It’s why a group of advertisers, agencies and media companies agreed on the standard of 50% of a display ad for a minimum of one second.

Let me illustrate why these points are essential in evolving viewability with a personal story: I have a bedtime routine with our two toddler boys where they can ask dad any question they want to. Any parent reading this will realize that dad often doesn’t know the answers to their questions. Last week, our five year old made some significant inquiries into the nature of bricks: What are they made of? Why are they all the same size? Why do they sometimes have holes in them? How are they so strong? And like many parents out there, after a kiss goodnight, I headed straight to Wikipedia so that I could have better informed answers ready at the breakfast table. It turns out bricks are the same size so that they fit in the mason’s hands and are interchangeable. The mason’s craft shapes these bricks into something useful and enduring.

Viewability is our brick. If we–marketers, publishers and everyone who serves their interests–don’t get it right and make it as strong as it can be, then our building will crumble. Our first go at building this digital landscape was built off of impressions defined by pings of ad servers. It turns out that those ads served weren’t viewable as much as 80% of the time. When technology improvements allowed us to see this problem, the need for a different standard for an impression became clear, preferably one not based on clicks and direct response metrics that undervalue the trust and equity of brand marketers and high quality content companies. The good work of the IAB, ANA and AAAAs has now given us a standard for our brick that is fair to everyone. Rolling it out won’t happen overnight and we all need to share equally in that effort.

But if we can agree that viewability is the brick, then what are we going to build? I believe the answer is the house of time and attention.

I was thrilled with all of the discussion and positive reaction to my column during Advertising Week on Why Attention is Worth More than the Click. Transacting on time was something that we discussed early on in 2012 as the natural next step of viewability and it is clear that, in the intervening years, progress has been made on this front. Here at Digital Content Next (formerly the Online Publishers Association), we conducted research among our members to examine time-based measurement and just last week we released a whitepaper “How time-Based Measurement is Grabbing Digital Publishers’ Attention,” which explores the results. We also had the opportunity to discuss the topic with industry leaders at a private member event.

And the evidence is clear: The time is right to build a more robust and resilient digital ecosystem in which we evaluate engagement and measure impact on something sturdier than crumbling clicks. Viewability is the brick from which we can build meaningful time-based measurement. This will require both strategic and technological changes. At DCN, we recommend that organizations reassess their measurement capabilities; implement viewability (if you’ve not already), report the total attention time on campaigns, whether advertisers ask for it or not; and equip ad operations and yield management teams with the tools to understand the value of the time your audience spends with your content. As Mike Donahue, EVP, 4A’s noted to me recently, this isn’t a quick fix but we know the steps: “Once we have the opportunity to see (viewability) nailed as a first step cross-platform currency, the sequential next step currency is engagement. Short of scalable, affordable neuro measures (of emotional response), time is the best surrogate to measure engagement.”

Innovation | Revenue

DCN Panel of Early Movers Sheds Light on the Evolution of Time-based Measurement

October 24, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

From the threat to cookies to inventory-glut, banner advertising was already in enough trouble when the dire statistics about viewability started to come in. In 2012, AdSafe Media found that, on average, 20% or less of all ads were in view for 15 seconds or more prompting the Media Rating Council (MRC) to issue a viewable impression advisory in November of 2012 aong with a call for the industry to develop intelligence around non-viewable ads. Though momentum was building. In June 2013, comScore still found that 54% of display ads were not seen at all, creating even more pressure on the marketplace to deliver solutions that factored in viewability.

And the industry responded. This March, the MRC lifted its advisory of viewability and industry interest in buying and selling on this metric began to heat up.advertisers became able to buy and sell display ads based began in earnest. The standard for a viewable online impression was set as 50% of its pixels remaining in-view for one continuous second or two for an online video ad. While there are differing opinions on where this bar should be set, a viewability standard is a solid start in developing digital advertising metrics that demonstrate effectiveness. Seeing an ad is certainly a step in the right direction given that the goal of advertising is to capture the attention of an audience long enough to make an impact.

So while viewability sets a baseline, many believe that that the true measure of ad-effectiveness is time-spent. Our research shows that 60% of premium publishers are already considering transacting based on time and 8% will begin testing it this year. And 4% of those participating in the research are already testing time-based measurement.

Among the early leaders are Gannett and FT.com, both of which participated in a panel on time-based measurement at a Digital Content Next members-only event on October 22^nd. The program featured a panel of experts that included Josh Schwartz, Chief Data Scientist at Chartbeat; Jonah Goodhart, Founder/CEO of MOAT; Daniel Rothman, US Director of Marketing & Insight at the Financial Times; and Steve Ahlberg, Vice President, Advertising Solutions and Product Management at Gannett Co. Inc. Ad Age reporter Michael Sebastian moderated the panel.

Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint noted in his opening remarks, “I’ve never seen a topic pick up this kind of momentum in the market. Viewability is part of our world going forward but time based measurement will absolutely be part of that future.”

Gannett was early on board for viewability, implementing validated impression measurement and guaranteed viewability in 2012. However, as Ahlberg pointed out, “We still have a long way to go before there’s value to everyone in the ecosystem. This problem has been going on so long that it has caused a lack of trust.” In fact, he predicts that it will be another 18 months before the advertising world is widely transacting on time. “Engagement isn’t something we see in DFP [DoubleClick for Publishers] right now,” he said, making the point that all of the components of forecasting, billing, etc. must be designed to incorporate engagement metrics, of which time-spent is a telling factor.

This summer, the Financial Times began to test a method of buying and selling inventory using time-spent. The company believes that viewability is a positive development, but that it doesn’t go far enough. During the panel, Rothman outlined FT research which found that the tipping point for ad engagement is not one or two seconds. “We can prove that five plus seconds matters,” he said. Ad recall, familiarity, association and consideration all get between 51% and 58% uplift at the five second mark according to Rothman. Thus, he is piloting a program in the New Year that will guarantee 100% viewability for five seconds. “We recognize that not all impressions are created equal. The research has proven that this is not opinion. This is fact. We need move the conversation on from quantity metrics.”

The FT works with Chartbeat, which got its start by providing real-time insights on content for editors and reporters. The editorial side of the house, according to Schwartz, “got it immediately. They want people to spend time with their articles; that’s why they write them. And, with the advent of viewability, it starts to matter to the business side of the house.” To his mind, monetizing on time better aligns both sides of the content business.

While Schwartz said he would be “highly surprised if the exact model that companies Gannett and FT are using right now is what we end up with,” he applauds the experimentation so that the industry can move towards metrics that provide value to the entire ecosystem. MOAT’s Goodhart cautions against counting on any publisher’s solution (or any single metric) dominating the industry. “It is a mistake to make it about one nuance of the idea of attention. We believe in attention, but we think it might be a combination of time and other things. We need to move people away from impressions and clicks, but give them options.”

Certainly, this transition away from CPMs will not happen overnight. At the FT, Rothman says that all of the agencies and partners they are working with “find this interesting and exciting” however they also hear that time-based measurement doesn’t fit in with how they are already buying media. “There’s a need for them to look outside their spreadsheets.”

Goodhart reports that, in just a matter of months, he has seen a huge shift in the understanding of viewability and finds CMOs are asking for it and that for 2015, he believes that a large number of agencies will “put a stake in the ground here.” And when that happens, Schwartz predicts that programmatic will take a big hit and that “publishers that redesign their sites around viewability are going to benefit.”

And, referring to the new Digital Content Next Research “How Time-Based Measurement is Grabbing Digital Publishers’ Attention,” Ahlberg said “For the five percent that said viewability that doesn’t matter, go back and tell your business leaders it is here. Educate your sales teams about the metrics that work and be confident in your story.”

Other coverage of this event and the related research:

Survey: 80% of Premium Publishers Want to Sell Ads Based on Time (Ad Age)
Online Publishers Are Serious About Selling Ads Based on Time (WSJ)
Survey: Publishers embracing shift to time-based metrics (Capital NY)
DCN: 80% Of Pubs Using Time-Based Metrics (NetNewsCheck)
80% of Publishers Interested in Transacting on Time: Digital Content Next Report (Chartbeat)

Advertising | Perspectives

Q&A: Justin Choi, CEO, Nativo on Ad Viewability

October 7, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

Q: Is “Viewability” ready to be used as a measurement of ad performance?

A: We see Viewability not as a measure of ad performance, but as a measure of ad viability and quality of ad placement. The technology to measure Viewability exists and should be used by marketers to hold digital ad providers to the most basic quality standard for ad placement, i.e. ensuring ad creative renders within the browser and can be seen. Further, as publishers move to feed-based and infinite scroll design layouts, Viewability will become increasingly important to extracting fair value for inventory that exists far below the fold.

Q: How do you work to ensure that ads are viewable and to provide marketers with appropriate and accurate measures for the performance of their digital advertising?

A: As a true native advertising provider, Nativo inventory placements render directly within publisher editorial feeds, exponentially increasing the likelihood of a marketer’s ad creative being viewed. Furthermore, Nativo approaches measurement in three distinct ways:

Nativo provides proprietary analytics for viewability that adhere to MRC standard measures
Nativo supports all third party ad verification for viewability including MOAT, Integral Ad Science, DoubleVerify, etc., and
Nativo has been a pioneer in efficiency, always charging marketers on a viewable CPM (vCPM), which means advertisers are only charged when the native ad unit comes into view of the browser.

Again, our point of view is that Viewability is not a performance metric, but a necessary quality standard for paid media placement. Viewability should be table stakes for paid media. Ensuring ad creative can be viewed enables brand advertisers to better ensure their paid media, at the very least, has a chance to make an impact with consumers. Without viewability, marketers are forced to measure quality in clicks; a challenged metric that works for direct response advertisers but not for brand advertisers.

Q: Is achieving a standardized measure and method for viewability important?

A: Yes, standardized measures for viewability are important for our industry, provided they are not so rigid that they can only be applied to IAB display and video units. Too rigid a standard will only inhibit advertiser adoption of innovative ad creatives, and slow publisher expansion of non-standard inventory placements.

Native is a prime example of non-standard ad creative (content) and placement (in-feed) where marketers are seeing some of the most exciting consumer engagement and KPI performance in years. That said, it is important that industry organizations and governing bodies establish an accepted understanding of what it means for an ad to be viewable, as well as guidelines and definitions for marketers, publishers and ad providers to follow, including accepted technical methodologies for measurement.

Justin Choi is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Nativo, the premier native advertising platform for digital publishers and brand marketers. Nativo works with major brand advertisers and more than 250 premium publishers and was named “Hottest Startup in LA”. Prior to Nativo, Justin was the founder and CEO of Cie Games, a leading producer of top-grossing mobile and social games, which was acquired for $100MM; and founder and Chairman of Cie Studios, a growing and profitable, award-winning interactive agency focused on digital marketing and custom app development for top brands.

Q&A: Michael Friedenberg, CEO IDG Communications Worldwide, on Ad Viewability

Q&A: Jeff Burkett, Sr. Director Ad Innovation & Product Strategy The Washington Post, on Ad Viewability