Kudos to Marc Pritchard, P&G’s global brand building officer, for putting the digital-advertising industry on notice regarding what he calls the “crap trap.” Beginning
immediately, transparency is non-negotiable, and he intends to ensure P&G gets it via a four-point plan, which I was privileged to hear him describe last week at the Interactive Advertising
Bureau Leadership Summit.
His first two points concerned viewability, which intrigues me.
At its heart, viewability ensures that consumers have a chance to see the ads brands pay
for, but it can’t guarantee the consumer will actually look at, much less engage, with them.
If this was a legal battle, we might say there’s a letter and spirit of the viewability
standard. The letter is the technical definition of the standard (i.e., 50% of the creative in view for at least one full second). The spirit speaks to creating relevant experiences for both the
consumer and the brand. Pritchard’s edict spurs the industry to work harder to meet the letter, but it’s the spirit we must strive for.
Marketers want impressions that can be seen,
and it’s hard to find fault with that position. But does that mean publishers should expect no compensation for ads they load but aren’t viewed because the consumer clicked away? If, as
some assert, up to 50% of all impressions are non-viewable, does that mean publishers must accept that only 50% of their inventory can be monetized?
We need to create a scenario that benefits
everyone. To Rob Rasko, CEO of The 614 Group, a consultancy that advises premium publishers on viewability, the solution lies in optimizing the ecosystem. “There are huge volumes of ads that
could be in view, if we can solve the time and context problems. Doing so will mean consumers spend more time on a page, and notice more ads,” he says.
Let’s start with time. Pages
are cluttered with third-party pixels that hog browser CPU and mar the user experience. Can the industry eliminate some of them?
DigiTrust, a non-for-profit consortium of industry players
(including GumGum) believes there is. According to DigiTrust, there are hundreds of third-party companies in the supply chain, each using its own cookie-based user identifier. For programmatic
advertising to work, those user IDs must be synced each and every time a user lands on a page. DigiTrust wants to replace proprietary user IDs with a standard one, so only one pixel is fired. This
means faster load times — and, consequently, more ads meeting that one-second requirement.
This fix speaks to the letter of viewability. What about the spirit?
The premise of
viewability is that if consumers can see an ad, they may take the time to consider its message. The likelihood of that happening is driven by ad relevance because, as we all know, consumers have
perfected the art of ignoring display ads.
Ads that are tightly associated with the content’s subject see much higher conversion rates. Last week Beyoncé issued a dramatic
pregnancy announcement. What if P&G had inserted ads for diapers directly on or alongside that image? It’s hard to imagine a more noticeable advertising opportunity.
According to
Caitlin Maddox-Smith at Ripple Foods, a plant-based dairy alternative company, “Highly viewable placements paired with the most relevant content are ultimately what get the consumers to engage
with our ads and brand. We are more likely to grab attention serving next to a lactose-intolerant dessert guide than just any random recipe.”
The consumer has evolved, and folks like
Pritchard are willing to invest in new creatives. It’s time for the ad-tech sector to do its part and rethink what’s possible.