Pinterest and Kantar team up to measure the viewable reach and impact of video ads

Challenge

In 2020, video views on Pinterest increased more than 3x over the previous year. That’s one reason why Pinterest partnered with Kantar’s LIFT Solution to measure the effectiveness of video campaigns on the platform.

However, just because an ad is served online or in an app that doesn’t mean it will be seen by users. And if an ad isn’t seen at all, it can’t drive impact. In an effort to handle this issue, the Media Rating Council (MRC) redefined its Cross-Media Audience Measurement Standard in September 2019 to foster a collective industry standard for measuring video ad performance. These new guidelines state that only viewable impressions should be counted to measure reach, frequency, and gross rating points across media for video campaigns.

Approach

Pinterest is partnering with MOAT, Integral Ad Science (IAS) and DoubleVerify to measure the viewability of ads on the platform, third-party viewability vendors that are certified and accredited by the MRC. However, these vendors can’t yet measure the viewable reach of videos on Pinterest. Thanks to our LIFT solution, Pinterest can go beyond traditional metrics like impressions and views and measure the incremental impact that ads have on brand metrics like awareness, consideration and intent. Pinterest provides data on frequency, format and video view duration, which Kantar then overlays with brand metrics to determine the viewable reach of videos. We analysed with Pinterest’s Measurement team the viewable reach of 42 video campaigns on the platform.

Insight

The viewable reach of videos on Pinterest ranges from 54% to 99% with an average of 82%. This means that 82% of people reached by the campaign have seen at least one impression on 50% of the surface for two seconds or more. The Consumer Packaged Goods category, an industry known for holding people’s attention with inspiring content like recipes and beauty tutorials, had the highest viewable reach: 86% on average.*

Additionally, there’s a strong correlation between viewable reach and message association uplifts. Indeed, higher viewability results often lead to stronger message take-out on Pinterest. In the coming months, the investigation into viewable reach and its impact on brand metrics will continue

Impact

With more insight into viewability, reach and brand perception change across video campaigns, Pinterest and Kantar are providing advertisers with the information they need to optimise their ad spend and foster their return on ad spend.