Ad Tech Consortium Enlists IAB Tech Lab to Drive Development & Industry Adoption of Critical Tool for Measuring Digital Video Ads Against MRC Viewable Impression Standard
NEW YORK – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced that the IAB Tech Lab will now be managing the “Open Video Viewability” initiative, or OpenVV, a project focused on building open source code that enables streamlined measurement of the Media Rating Council (MRC) viewable impression standard for video advertising. TubeMogul, BrightRoll, Innovid, LiveRail, and SpotXchange founded the “Open Video Viewability” program with the belief that there should be an open, common standard for video viewability measurement. Over the course of its two-year history, OpenVV grew to include over 30 members from across the video ecosystem. With this move, the original founders – all members of the IAB Tech Lab – will remain on the project as it is rolled into the lAB Tech Lab’s Digital Video Technical Standards Working Group, working to ramp up efforts in creating a common, scalable and interoperable technical solution to effectively measure viewability for video.
Between the industry’s acute need to accurately measure viewable impressions and the dramatic growth of digital video as a medium, it is critical that we coalesce around common interoperable technical approaches.
This marks the first industry initiative to be on-boarded into the recently established IAB Tech Lab, a nonprofit research and development organization charged with producing and helping companies implement global industry technical standards and solutions.
“The IAB Tech Lab is about providing the digital marketing supply chain with ad technology services and solutions, and the ‘Open Video Viewability’ project fits squarely into our sweet spot,” said Scott Cunningham, Senior Vice President, Technology and Ad Operations, IAB and General Manager of the IAB Tech Lab. “Between the industry’s acute need to accurately measure viewable impressions and the dramatic growth of digital video as a medium, it is critical that we coalesce around common interoperable technical approaches.”
“It is amazing to think back and realize that over two years ago – when TubeMogul developed the first version of OpenVV code and decided to make it open source – advertisers hoping to measure video viewability faced a messy patchwork of differing, proprietary solutions. We’ve come a long way,” said Keith Eadie, Chief Marketing Officer, TubeMogul. “Now that a standard is in place from the MRC, there is no better home for OpenVV than the IAB Tech Lab, which will help broaden adoption of the technology and get us get closer to a future where every video ad has an opportunity to be seen and acted on.”
“A founding member of OpenVV, BrightRoll has had a long-standing commitment to the development of viewability standards for video advertising,” said Tod Sacerdoti, CEO, BrightRoll. “We applaud the IAB’s leadership in taking on solutions that drive advertiser confidence around the impact of their video investments, while driving continued growth for the industry as a whole.”
“With a plethora of innovation around the standardization of ad tech, Innovid has discovered that the definition of a ‘standard’ is clearly an important step, but supplying a technology library to enable it, is the real catalyst for adoption,” said Tal Chalozin, CTO and Co-Founder, Innovid. “We are very pleased to see the work of the OpenVV group come to fruition in regards to open source viewability measurement for digital video.”
“It’s great to have the IAB helping to chart a course toward measurement standardization, a subject that continues to challenge both buyers and sellers in the video advertising industry,” said Doug Render, Vice President of Product Management, SpotXchange.
This news was released at the IAB Digital Video Marketplace conference in New York City. To learn more about the “Open Video Viewability” initiative, please visit www.iab.net/techlab.
About the IAB
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) empowers the media and marketing industries to thrive in the digital economy. It is comprised of more than 650 leading media and technology companies that are responsible for selling, delivering, and optimizing digital advertising or marketing programs. Together, they account for 86 percent of online advertising in the United States. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. The organization is committed to professional development, elevating the knowledge, skills, and expertise of individuals across the digital marketing industry. The IAB also educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City.
