Viewer Ad 'Attention' Drops For The First Time
- by Wayne Friedman , August 28, 2023
Viewer "attention" of connected TV (CTV)/streaming ads has dropped for the first time, according to TVision, since it has been measuring ads with its "eyes-on-screen" technology.
CTV/streaming ad attention slipped to 29.6% in the first six months of 2023, from 31.2% over the same time period in 2022.
TVision's "eyes-on-screen" technology has been measuring "attention" to video content since 2017. In addition, the more general "presence in the room" measure also dipped to 55.9% (from (59.2%)
The company reasons that this may be because of increasing on-screen counters from apps that inform viewers during an advertising commercial break how long it will be until program content resumes.
advertisement
advertisement
In addition, it also says 40% of CTV ads were aired in lower viewed late-night, overnight, and morning time periods.
By way of comparison, the study says only 20% of linear TV ads are delivered in these less attentive time periods. Linear TV scored a 34.1% “ad attention” (up from 33.7% a year ago) and 67.9% “presence in-room” (67.4% in 2022).
At the same time, there has been a 38% increase in share of time spent on ad-supported ads overall compared to the same six-month time period a year ago.
An additional 77% of “premium” apps for those services have ad-supported options -- such as Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, Peacock, and Paramount+ -- are more likely to deliver ads when viewers are in a room than “average” CTV apps. No definition was disclosed with regard to “average” CTV apps.
In terms of best attention for individual apps, Apple TV+ (its ad-free video-on-demand app) posted a 136.7 index for the first six months of 2023.
YouTube TV (the virtual pay TV provider) was next with 120.9, followed by Prime Video (ad-free app) at 119.4; Netflix (a combination of ad-free and ad-supported options) at 113.4 and Peacock with 112.0 (a combination of ad-free and ad-supported options).
TVision says the average app attention score was 119.1.
TVision measures every time a person walks into a room, detecting who the viewer is, where they are in the room, and what their eyes are looking at.
Its "presence-in-room" metric measures the amount of seconds that viewers are in the room, while "attention" measures the percentage of ad impressions where a a viewer watches the TV screen for two or more seconds of programming and/or advertising on TV.
Data was collected from an opt-in panel of 5,000 homes across the U.S., weighted to represent the country.
The Linear and CTV ad impression data was collected from January 1 through June 30, 2023.
Gulp!. As to what accounts for this decline in CTV commercial attentiveness it may also be a matter of advertisers using more "15s" relative to "30s" than at the same time last year. I don't buy the daypart explanation as CTV buys were probably spread out to a greater extent than linear TV---- in early AM, daytime and late night time slots---- in 2022 as well as this year. If that's not the case perhaps TVision can give us some comparative stats as to when CTV commercials were on screen for both years. Finally, the types of advertisers may have changed somewhat and those who joined in this year---but were absent or only light spenders in 2022---may be putting out less engaging commercials.