IPG Media Lab, Magna study quantifies human presence value in ads

On average a TV advert airs to an empty room three out every ten times even as advertising players continue to pay more attention to the channels at the expense of the human presence.

On the other hand when digital ads appear on screen, a viewer is present 99.2 per cent of the time, but that begins to drop after two or more seconds. The subject of quantifying digital ad viewability has received new insights from a new study conducted by MAGNA and IPG Media Lab.

Dubbed, “Dissecting ‘Opportunity to See,’” the study tested the presumption that a person is present when digital ads appear on the screen, in an effort to quantify how often digital ads appear without the person present.

Presence in the study was defined as a person in the same visual range for greater or equal to one second of a digital ad that fully appears on the screen with the assumption that the person may or may not be looking at the screen.  A major finding from the study is that while presence is very high at first by up to 99.2 per cent, it does decline.  For example, 94 per cent of non-skippable video ads reached six or more seconds of human presence.

Participants in the study used in-home POV cameras to record their digital viewing experiences across PC and mobile devices in a natural environment over the course of two weeks.

In each instance, the camera was mounted to the participant’s head in order to obtain a view of where they are in relation to their digital device, and a screen recorder was turned on their PC and mobile devices to capture what’s on the screen. The study included 102 participants, with 1,004 hours of video recorded and analyzed.

Kara Manatt, SVP, Group Director, Intelligence Solutions, MAGNA Global: “It’s crucial for marketers to accurately understand both of the components that determine whether ads have the opportunity to be seen. While the industry has a strong understanding of ‘ads on screen’, we’ve yet to understand whether we should expect a person to always be present. This research finally quantifies this for us and provides invaluable insight into consumer behavior.”

The study further revealed that there was nearly total presence regardless of device and for both digital video and display.

All video positions are not created equally. Digital presence for pre-roll video sat at 99.5 per cent, compared to mid-roll video at 97.1 per cent.

Overall, 97.7 per cent of digital video ads had presence for more than two seconds.

Presence, however, declines over time indicating the continued need for the industry to understand how to best capture and hold consumer attention.

The study is a follow up to research conducted by MAGNA and IPG Media Lab, in partnership with TVision, dubbed“Quantifying TV Viewability,” which revealed how often people are in the room when ads air and how this varies by daypart, position in ad pod and ad length.

These new insights shine new light for the advertising industry that has primarily focused on only one of the factors that determines “opportunity to see” digital ads – whether the ad actually appears on the screen.

What is often not discussed is the other factor that offers a non-fraudulent digital ad an “opportunity to be seen” – a person is present when the ad is on screen. To date, human presence has often been overlooked by the industry because it is difficult to measure, and because ads are served to personal devices like mobile phones.

It is presumed that someone is present when a digital ad is on screen. While it seems logical, no one has actually tested this conjecture until now.

The full report can be downloaded here

www.ipgmediabrands.com

www.magnaglobal.com