Streaming media services regularly keep serving ads even though viewers have turned off and left the room.
In the US, a study by GroupM and iSpot found that on average 8% to 10% of streaming impressions play when the TV is shut off.
Companies including Disney, Fox/Tubi, LG Ads Solutions, NBCUniversal, Paramount, VIZIO and Warner Bros Discovery have committed to working with agencies, advertisers, and standards-setting bodies to create a measurement framework and best practices to ensure ads are only counted when delivered to screens that are on, with people in front of them.
The effort follows GroupM’s focus last year in pushing for greater implementation of “Are You Still Watching” end cards to help address potential inflated audience counts.
That initiative was widely adopted by publishers and platforms but does not fully solve the issue.
“The explosion of streaming is rich with opportunity to deliver smarter ad experiences across a wide variety of possible channels,” said Kirk McDonald, CEO, GroupM North America.
“With any technological advancements, it’s our job to close the gaps so all avenues of ad delivery are verified.
“As responsible investment stewards of our clients’ media spend, this verification illuminates both the issue and the opportunity for our industry. Regardless of the medium, if an ad is running, we want and should be able to attribute, measure, and report that an ad was served and seen.”
The study found:
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On average, 8%-10% of overall streaming impressions were delivered when the TV was shut off.
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17% of impressions delivered only through CTV streaming devices such as dongles, gaming consoles, and sticks were delivered when the TV was shut off. Gaming consoles generally had lower rates of continuous play than dongles and sticks.
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Native Smart TV Apps—which account for about 50% of all CTV viewing[1]—had virtually no incidence of overcounts across streaming ad delivery.
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Depending on the configuration among the three components—TV make and model, streaming device and publisher app—the CTV impression overcount by publisher ranged from 2.5% to 15% across all CTV streaming activity.
GroupM and iSpot evaluated hundreds of millions of aggregate and anonymised CTV impressions delivered across 20 million Smart TVs, various platforms and publishers between January 1 and June 30, 2021.
iSpot, with input from GroupM and other industry participants, has developed a first-of-its-kind measurement offering that is built on top of its Unified Measurement product.
The beta product, iSpot CTV Verification, measures continuous play incidence at the campaign level.
GroupM will have exclusive access for a period of time as the product completes testing and development, at which point it will be available to the marketplace.
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