• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, March 22, 2006

The Interactive Advertising Bureau on Tuesday called for comment on a set of guidelines for broadband video commercial measurement. The proposed guidelines address online browser or browser-equivalent based Internet activity that involves streaming video and audio advertising content.

At issue is when a broadband video commercial should be counted as being displayed, said Greg Stuart, the IAB's CEO. "The big issue here is determining at what point an ad should be measured," he said. "We ... have decided it's the start of the commercial, and that's a big deal in moving our world towards accountability."

Stuart said that while he considers video ads to be small potatoes compared to other categories the IAB reviews, their potential merits plenty of attention early on. "It's still not that large a category, but it's important to address early because it will be so big."

According to the guidelines, "a valid broadband ad impression may only be counted when an ad counter (logging server) receives and responds to an HTTP request for a tracking asset from a client. The count must happen after the initiation of the stream, post-buffering, as opposed to the linked broadband content itself."

The IAB defines a "broadband video commercial" as a commercial that appears before, during, and after content including streaming video, animation, gaming, and music video content in a player environment. This definition includes commercials that appear in live, archived, and downloadable streaming content.