The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread? Week of Feb. 8th.

Over the summer I had the privilege of working as an intern at Media Contacts. The team I was working with handled the online media for Reckitt Benckiser. RB was in a transitional stage, taking money out of their TV advertising budget, about $20 million and moving it to digital. What was so exciting about working on this campaign was how groundbreaking it was. Not only was I experiencing first hand, the evolution of advertising from TV to digital, I was seeing it done in a new way. Reckitt wasn't advertising on sites that represent TV on the internet, such as Hulu, which can cost $40 cpm. Instead Reckitt was buying pre-roll and in-banner ads at around $2 cpm on news video, casual gaming and low-end lifestyle sites. These sites, as Ad Age put it, "can stand as proxies for the daytime TV audiences that Reckitt wants to reach."

Even more innovative was how Reckitt was accounting for every ad it served and viewer it received. Reckitt and Media Contacts set up a system through a company called Telemetry that assured it would never pay for an impression that did not completely load. Also, the viewer at the end of the advertisement, had to click to see the video that came after the ad. To me this was a very interesting component of measurement in advertising, and through my internship I learned about other tools that existed for online advertisers. For example, there is a program that can tell you where on your digital ad, the viewer clicked or scrolled over with their mouse. This can help you see which parts of your ads are attracting the attention of consumers and which areas are not. I thought I had seen it all as far as tools for digital advertisers, and what information can be seen about their experience.

Until now.

While reading the Universal McCann blog, I learned about a program called RealVu. RealVu allows the advertiser to identify when and for how long an ad that ran was "within the viewable area" of the users computer screen. This is particularly useful for when an ad, because of placement, requires a user to scroll down to see it. When this is required the ad is called "below the fold," and with RealVu the advertiser would not have this count as an ad that ran, saving money and increasing the proficiency of the campaign. Much like how Reckitt did not pay for ads that did not completely load or play.

Then there's this depressing part. Across all the placements that have been tracked by RealVu, only 50% of online ads are never viewed because they are outside of the user's viewable area.

Whoa.

That means you're never really paying cpm, you're paying for cost per 500. As J. Wanamaker once famously said, "half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." Well, Mr. Wanamaker, RealVu does know which half, and they seem to have a solution. Now I don't know how expensive RealVu is, but I cannot imagine how that cost wouldn't be negligible once the ads you are serving becomes twice as efficient. This ads a whole new level of accountability to a medium that already offers the greatest amount of measurement.

A lot of what makes advertisers hesitant before moving advertising budget to digital is the lack of accountability. Now there's tools to help remove all doubt. Consider reaching an audience for $2 cpm, with ads that you know run and requires the user to interact with, and then add in the fact that it must be on the screen to count. You have just reached what was thought to be an advertising myth: reliable, accurate measurement.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, may be the greatest thing since sliced bread.