This is a nonstarter because it doesn’t solve the media measurement problem.
Everyone in the advertising value chain has a financial incentive to run their own metrics. Nobody trusts anyone else’s metrics; and publishers will overstate viewership and advertisers will understate impressions. Nobody can even agree on a standard set of metrics for measuring the success of an ad.
That’s why all sorts of JavaScript tracking and analytics get included in online media properties. It’s called the “measurement problem” and it is far from a new problem in media. It’s one of those rare situations where incentives are so opposed that both parties have no reason to pretend they’re not screwing the other.
Edit: also, every decently large publisher will have its own ad standards as to what you can and cannot include, sizing, etc. usually you just work with an ad buyer and a creative firm to identify publishers to target, what keywords to aim for and design the ads for the format at each publisher. And most serious publishers will only serve ads hosted directly on their servers or a set of approved CDNs/DSPs.
Edit2: also there are mature formats for this stuff already like VAST, etc. they all include JavaScript and flash.
> And most serious publishers will only serve ads hosted directly on their servers or a set of approved CDNs/DSPs.
If the ads are hosted on my own servers, all is good.
I don't know YouTube or how its leadership thinks about these things but if I were in charge, I would go bankrupt before I allowed WPP to insert their arbitrary code on YouTube website and apps.
Point is that we have to put our foot on the ground and tell advertisers that they have to trust us. If that means publishers get paid less per "impression", I would be ok with it. This just seems like common sense to me because advertisers had to simply trust publishers when it came to print journalism. I think we need something to level the playing field so advertisers cannot compel publishers (or exchanges if we can sort of merge the publisher and the exchange) to give up their crown jewels.
Everyone in the advertising value chain has a financial incentive to run their own metrics. Nobody trusts anyone else’s metrics; and publishers will overstate viewership and advertisers will understate impressions. Nobody can even agree on a standard set of metrics for measuring the success of an ad.
That’s why all sorts of JavaScript tracking and analytics get included in online media properties. It’s called the “measurement problem” and it is far from a new problem in media. It’s one of those rare situations where incentives are so opposed that both parties have no reason to pretend they’re not screwing the other.
Edit: also, every decently large publisher will have its own ad standards as to what you can and cannot include, sizing, etc. usually you just work with an ad buyer and a creative firm to identify publishers to target, what keywords to aim for and design the ads for the format at each publisher. And most serious publishers will only serve ads hosted directly on their servers or a set of approved CDNs/DSPs.
Edit2: also there are mature formats for this stuff already like VAST, etc. they all include JavaScript and flash.