Every once in a while, a word becomes so common in our media vocabulary that we lose sight of its actual meaning. Impression is a good example. We know what it means. We’ve been using it for decades. Yet as the term is used more broadly for holistic media measurement, it’s easy to wonder if its meaning has changed along the way.

It hasn’t.

To level set, let’s agree that the word impression simply refers to the act of seeing content and advertising. Back in the early 1990s, online publishers began using the word to tell advertisers how many people saw their banner ads. Today, the media industry uses the word much more widely, and that usage is backed by comprehensive—and independent—measurement and validation standards. That evolution notwithstanding, the word still refers to people seeing content and ads.

The universal applicability of the term is precisely why impressions are the great equalizer, particularly as consumers broaden their content consumption across devices and platforms—and on their own schedules. That behavior has also advanced the industry’s move to impression-based buying and selling, which has been accelerating for some time. This year, with the incorporation of broadband-only homes into local TV measurement, that acceleration culminates as the industry adopts impressions-based buying and selling in local markets across the U.S. 

Through the transition toward Nielsen ONE, the media industry gains full comparability across linear and digital, and measurement will be complete and representative. Additionally, the industry gets comparable measurement at the subminute level. 

While the premise of an impression is simple, there is a layer of complexity that factors into what constitutes an impression. For comparable cross-media measurement, the move to impressions relies on existing standards that determine whether content can actually be seen by someone (i.e., viewability). 

Historically, viewability has been more of a consideration across digital platforms (due to ads below the fold, ads that don’t render, skippable ads, and more), but digital and linear are quickly converging as consumer behavior continues to transcend platform categorization. Amid the convergence, access to scheduled programming no longer requires a cable subscription. Consumers can skip ads in certain CTV applications and advertisers continue to increase their use of programmatic technology as smart TV adoption continues to proliferate. 

Viewability standards have evolved over the years, but until recently, that progression had pertained to individual platforms. Several cross-media audience measurement standards have emerged to bridge linear and digital. According to some standards, cross-platform viewability happens when 100% of the pixels from content is viewed on screen for two consecutive seconds. The standards also assume that television programming is distributed at 100% pixels.

While the media industry has been using impressions for years—even in national TV— the transition to impressions for complete and comparable cross-media measurement is a significant step. And while it’s predicated on a foundational metric that’s road tested and abundantly understood, applying it universally will be an adjustment.

Applying it across both studio- and creator-produced content will also be an adjustment, particularly with respect to the differing opinions about varied levels of content production and “quality.” The audience and advertiser will decide on quality, and brands will likely use filters for determining where they place their advertisements, just as they do with tools like DV and IAS for determining “safe content.” Filters may vary by advertiser, but there is a need for the industry to set some basic standards, and we are keen to work with the buy-side to incorporate them into measurement. 

Any sweeping change, no matter how foreseen, will be met with at least some resistance—not to mention questions. In this instance, the questions should be easy to navigate, largely because the foundation for the road ahead already exists and the industry has standards to address questions about viewability. It will, however, take some time for the industry to fully adapt.

To help with adaptation, average commercial minute ratings will remain available for linear measurement as the industry acclimates. For true comparability across platforms, however, brands and agencies will be able to leverage Individual Commercial Metrics to activate and optimize their omni channel campaigns. 

As brands and agencies make the transition, however, it’s important for each to understand that impressions from different measurement sources will vary in quality. As with any form of measurement, impression quality will depend on comprehensive, person-level representation. And from that perspective, impressions provide a more accurate form of measurement than ratings. 

Unlike ratings-based measurement, which yields a percentage of a given universe of users, impressions reflect the actual number of times ads appear in front of viewers. That means:

There has never been a more critical time for all parties in the media industry to understand how consumers are engaging with media. Connectivity, device and platform proliferation, and individual choice create seemingly infinite choice for consumers—and that choice amplifies the need for measurement that’s agnostic of said choice. With the convergence of linear and digital worlds, impressions provide measurement. To make the most of impressions, it will be critical that impressions are of a quality that provide representative measurement. While there is only one definition for the word “impression,” an impression is only as good as its supporting data. ■

Total digital video ad impressions jumped 42% in the second half of 2020, according to new figures from the Innovid iQ dashboard.

Innovid said it saw a shift from linear TV to connected TV, with CTV impressions climbing 76%. 

Leading the growth in CTV ads were telecom up 148% consumer packaged goods category, up 117% and pharmaceuticals, up 109%.

Digital publishers saw a 104% increase in impressions during the half, followed by social with 62%, programmatic grew by 43% and broadcasters posted a 28% increase in impressions.

Impressions delivered on TV sets were up 80%. Mobile devices delivered 34% more impressions and PC impressions grew 14%, according to Innovid.

Innovid is an independent omni-channel advertising and analytics platform built for television.

Video-on-demand programming continues to grow as an advertising medium, according to new figures from Canoe.

Ads served by Canoe in video-on-demand programming registered 6.995 billion impressions in the fourth quarter, up 37% from 5.111 billion a year ago.

Canoe ran 3,412 campaigns in the fourth quarter of 2017, up 46% from 2,341 a year ago. Campaigns for clients represented 82% of the campaigns while network tune in ads comprised 18% of the campaigns. A year ago, 79% of the campaigns were run for clients.

Related: Set-Top VOD Ads Must Evolve to Survive

For the full year, Canoe racked up 23.326 billion impressions in 2017, up 30% from 17.903 billion in 2016.

Canoe ran 7,822 campaigns in 2017, up 35% from 5,783.

On average, Canoe is putting more ads in each VOD program. During fourth-quarter breaks in the middle of programs, an average of 4.04 ads ran in the fourth quarter, up from 3.73 a year ago. During pre-roll, 1.17 ads appear, up from 1.1, with 1.41 appearing in post-roll, up from 1.02.

During the fourth quarter nearly all of the impressions came from mid-roll ads. There were 5.9 billion impressions in mid-roll, compared with 969 million in pre-roll and 102 million in post roll ads.

Related: Canoe Marks 100 Billion Spots Inserted in VOD Programming

Campaigns that employ frequency capping put that cap at two impressions, on average.

The ads are overwhelmingly run completely. In mid-roll, 99% of the ads run to completion. In pre-roll, it’s 90.2% and in post-roll its’s 93.4%.

VOD viewing and ad delivery peaks during the weekend. Canoe delivered 1.196 billion impression on Sundays and 1.185 billion on Saturdays, the two biggest days of the week during the fourth quarter.

Canoe inserts ads in programming in 36 million households service by Charter Spectrum, Comcast and Cox, up from 35 million households a year ago. Those operators own Canoe as a joint venture.

The number of ad impressions in video-on-demand programming from cable operators working with Canoe jumped again in the third quarter.

Ads served in VOD programming generated 5.668 billion impressions in the third quarter, up 48% from 3.812 billion a year ago, the company said. Canoe serves 36 million households that subscribe to Charter, Comcast and Cox.

Canoe ran a total of 3,208 campaigns in the quarter, up 51% from 2,123 a year ago.

Related: Canoe Marks 100 Billion Spots Inserted in VOD Programming

VOD ads are becoming increasingly popular as viewing increases and as more networks enable dyanmic ad insertion technology, which allows advertisers to better target their commercials. Last year's totals were impacted by the election, which soaked up viewer attention.

About 24% of the Q3 campaigns were network tune-in campaigns. The others were for clients in a wide range of categories. The breakdown was similar last year.

So far this year, Canoe’s ads have generated 17.9 billion impressions, up from 12.8 billion at this point a year ago.

Related: Set-Top VOD Ads Must Evolve to Survive

Canoe said that 99% of the time consumers watch mid-roll ads to completion. In pre-roll the completion rate is 99.18% and it is 91.35% in post-roll breaks.

The bulk of Canoe’s ad impressions are created by mid-roll ads, which generated 4.684 billion impressions, compared with 896.7 million pre-roll impressions and 87.2 million post-roll impressions. 

Read more at broadcasatingcable.com.

A year ago, at Mobile World Congress 2016, Samsung announced its first million hardware shipments. This marked the first time a major VR headset manufacturer had reached this milestone. At this same time last year, Mark Zuckerberg’s surprise appearance in Barcelona, Spain, surrounded by an audience all in VR headsets, sparked excitement for the future of VR. The image went viral and capital, entrepreneurs and brands made significant investments into the space.

Today, a year later, critics question whether VR is just a fad or whether it is the next major computing platform. With holiday sales of headsets underwhelming expectations, the cynics commentary has gotten louder. It is important for everyone to keep in mind, that just 12 months ago, there was no HTC Vive on the market. Even Daydream, Playstation and Oculus launched in just the past 6 months. So any opinion or commentary on the space feels too early.

As a VR platform working closely with brands, publishers, and VR content producers, we have seen consistent increased demand in the VR ecosystem over the course of the past year. Rather than sharing an opinion piece of whether this is the year of VR or not, I wanted to share the data that we are seeing from real business and real consumer engagement with our products.

What we see today is higher consumer engagement, higher quality content, and more demand from brands than ever. This February marked a new record with substantial year-over-year growth. Today, we have helped more than 100 brands and publishers deliver over 100 million VR ad impressions. Here are the key takeaways based on our data and case studies.

The real question to justify whether VR actually will take off is around consumer engagement. Almost every brand has asked what the uplift and engagement will be when they invest in VR. For every campaign, we have run both VR and 2D experiences to compare the performance across the same placement. We started by comparing 360° photos with 2D images. Then, we compared 360° VR videos with 2D videos. These experiments were performed across all platforms, including VR headsets, smartphones, tablets and desktops.

We measured heat-map (eyeballs) tracking, time spent in the experience, and click-through-rate for the display units. All data suggests that VR experiences gain higher attention from audiences. With higher engagement from audiences, brands can ensure that their message is delivered more effectively.

Brands are investing even more in VR technology

Initially we thought VR experiences made sense for travel and real estate. The nature of their products is one that aligns well with a 360° experience. In reality however, we have seen a broad range of VR content from brands. You may not think a VR campaign would be straightforward for insurance, alcohol, kitty litter, or even fast food companies, but we have seen brands from all verticals -- from Chick-fil-A to Cartier -- bring audiences into their narrative through this immersive media format. (Case studies are available here.)

Our takeaway: Every brand can effectively use VR for its marketing. Immersing your potential customer in your brand’s narrative is not a new objective to the marketer, and VR is being experimented with and successfully executed by creatives the same way we have seen these brands lean into online video 10 years ago.

And production value is getting stronger as well. One year ago, stereoscopic 360° content (VR content that is created for dimension of left and right eyes) was still in the lab. Not many brands and production partners knew how to film it. Today, we are serving advertising campaigns with stereoscopic video on a daily basis. We are receiving inbounds about spatial audios (360° audio), 8K resolution, 180° 3D (theater-like experience), and Web VR (Web Browser inside VR headsets). This all demonstrates deeper engagement with the medium. Brands, agencies and their production partners are learning into this technology and creating better VR experiences by the day.

Read more of this blog at omnivirt.com.

Brad Phaisan is CEO of OmniVirt, a 360° video and virtual reality advertising platform.