Dive Brief:
- Digital ad viewability may still be a murky issue for desktop, but the Media Rating Council has plans to set clear standards for mobile.
- A close-to-final draft of the MRC mobile viewability standard was released for public comment last Friday.
- Interim guidelines were released almost a year ago and in the meantime Moat became the first vendor to be accredited for mobile viewability on the mobile web and an in-app.
Dive Insight:
"I wouldn’t say that everybody is ready for this, but there are numerous people clamoring for standards, and organizations are already trading on it,” George Ivie, CEO and executive director of the MRC, told Ad Exchanger. “We did feel a sense of urgency with this.”
At the core, mobile and desktop viewable standards are very similar. For instance, 50% of pixels need to be in view for one second for display ads and two seconds for video ads. Although from a technology standpoint there are some differences in terms of defining what a mobile web ad is since those ads can be served on the mobile web or in-app.
Mobile ad viewability has been a concern since at least late last summer, mostly because realistically there are no standards for digital ad viewability overall. The MRC and Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) may have a set of standards, but agencies often have their own standards that at times are more stringent than the MRC or IAB’s. Also, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have their own standards for ads they serve.
Ivie recognizes the standards will likely be met with some "friction," however, he told Ad Exchanger it is definite step toward the MRC's greater goal of cross-platform measurement standards.