The Missing Metric

According to The Social Dilemma, exposure time is a critical metric for social media AI algorithms₍₁₎. Helping them predict your actions. In short, how long you view each post is important.

But when you are an advertiser, exposure time is often an unavailable metric.

IMAGE: Clip from /the social dilemma documentary₍₁₎.

"Time in view is king.”

The Effects of Exposure Time on Memory of Display Advertisements

But does this affect ads?

A paper, aiming to model the basic relationship between ad exposure time and the probability that a viewer will remember an advertisement, found that "there is a strong, causal influence of exposure time on ad recognition and recall”₍₂₎.

Furthermore, a scientific study of viewability and ad effectiveness found that "Time in view is king. When it comes to moving the dial on ad effectiveness, the number of pixels in view is not the driving factor - how long consumers have to see the ad is.”₍₃₎

Viewability Issues

Already “Viewability” has had a tumultuous reputation with whether ads are visible in part or at all. This led regulation by the Media Rating Council (MRC) — a U.S. governing body whose purpose is setting valid, reliable and effective measurement standards for the industry. They currently define viewability as 50% of the ad in view for one second for display ads and 50% of the ad in view for two continuous seconds for video.₍₄₎

…giving almost a hats off to the infamous quip "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half.”

By the American regulation, this counts:

IMAGE: American minimum standard for viewability.₍₄₎.

In Australia, the Australian Digital Advertising Practices have indicated how complex it is to record accurate metrics for viewability and "do not seek to include policy or propose benchmarks or regulations to viewable trading”₍₅₎. This leaves many agencies and clients to navigate and negotiate their own, unregulated standards with advertisers.

Risk Diverse or Risk Averse?

By no means are we anti-digital. We are from a digital background and are digital advertisers ourselves. Many of our campaigns go hand-in-hand with online and TVC. But, with every media channel there are advantages, risk and gaps. A diversified strategy spreads your marketing risk and provides for a multi-channel experience.

Live Audience Tracking for Human Billboards

Recently, Streetfighter Media team members were equipped with DataScope^TM Live Audience Tracking technology to see how many people were exposed to their Human Billboards and for how long (results exclude constant outliers, e.g., our team or people working close by).

People were exposed for up to 2.5 minutes, with an average exposure time of 55 seconds₍₆₎.

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In Summary

There is a strong correlation between exposure time and ad effectiveness and ad recall. But this metric is often unavailable for digital and social display campaigns. With any media channel there are benefits, risk and gaps. Diversifying can reduce risk of advertising investment and overcome channel limitations.

Example Campaigns working WITH digital

Connecting with locals in interesting ways is our business. And often clients come to us to build familiarity multi-channel or because they need something different in a saturated market. Here are a handful of examples directing people to the official hashtag, website, socials, etc.