• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, December 9, 2014

Engagement ad company true[X] on Tuesday announced the launch of the true[exchange], a digital ad platform that lets advertisers trade on “human attention instead of impressions or clicks.”

The company says all ads purchased via its new exchange are 100% consumer opt-in, thus guaranteeing consumer interaction. “For example, on Pandora you can opt in to interacting with a true[X] engagement to avoid being interrupted for four hours,” explained Christian Borges, SVP of marketing at true[X]. A recent Adweek piece notes that on one video campaign, 63% of consumers chose to interact with a true[X] ad instead of traditional “linear commercial breaks.” 

“The ads are designed to require consumer interaction,” explained Ed Davis, chief product officer of true[X]. Advertisers will only be charged if the user opens the ad, if it’s displayed “in a 100% share-of-voice manner,” if the user spends at least 30 seconds with the ad creative and if the user interacts in some way with the creative at least one time.

“Because all four of these elements must be achieved for an advertiser to be charged, true[exchange] bills on ‘viewed’ rather than ‘viewable,’” Davis added.

“The bar for what constitutes as ‘viewable’ is absurdly low and borderline worthless,” Joe Marchese, CEO of true[X], said in an earlier statement. He was referencing the Media Council Rating (MRC) standard of “viewable” of 50% of an ad being in-view for at least one continuous second. “We want to set the highest possible bar -- not just ‘viewable,’ but ‘viewed.’”

The company has partnered with Moat, a viewability rating vendor, and White Ops, a digital fraud detection firm, to bring independent viewability and fraud measurement to the true[exchange] platform.

“If a particular engagement experience is flagged by White Ops as being generated by programmatic fraud or bots, the advertiser is not charged,” explained Joshua Rangsikitpho, chief technology officer at true[X]. Additionally, “if a particular session is flagged by White Ops as being generated by programmatic fraud or bots, we do not serve additional ads to that session.”

In addition to viewability, fraud and other engagement metrics, true[X] says the new platform features a real-time “heat map” to “show what components of the interactive creative are most successful.” It tracks user mouse activity and creates a ‘heat’ scale showing where the highest highest concentration of mouse activity occurred, per Davis.