Flash and Rich Media Ads Represent 40 Percent of U.S. Online Display Ad Impressions

RESTON, Va., June 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today announced the introduction of the Ad Metrix Creative Summary report, designed to provide detailed intelligence on the size, formats, and types of display ads being used by advertisers on publisher sites. The report showed that JPEG display ads led the market with more than 42 percent of impressions in the U.S., while "leaderboard"-style banner ads (728 x 90 in dimension) were the most commonly viewed display ad by size.

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"We've witnessed a strong resurgence in the display ad market over the past several months, with the number of impressions up 15 percent vs. year ago and average CPMs also continuing to rise," said Jeff Hackett, comScore senior vice president. "One of the several drivers of strength in this market has been the innovation occurring with respect to ad units, as larger and more engaging creative ad formats are employed. We are excited to provide our clients with greater visibility into the use of different ad formats and sizes with the new comScore Ad Metrix Creative Summary report."

The new report is now available to subscribing clients via the comScore MyMetrix interface with the release of May 2010 Ad Metrix data. The data set is available for the U.S., Canada, U.K, Germany and France.

Display Ad Creative by Format

In April, nearly 60 percent of U.S. display ad impressions were of the standard GIF/JPEG variety. JPEGs accounted for 42.4 percent of ad impressions, while GIFs accounted for 14.1 percent. Flash and rich media ads combined to represent 40.3 percent of all display ads viewed.

* Flash Ads can include animation, click-through functionality, and various levels of interactivity. Rich Media Ads offer high interactivity and in-page video units, expandable/retractable units, floating units or between-the-page units. Includes Pointroll, EyeBlaster, EyeWonder, Unicast, Interpolis, Motif/DoubleClick.

Display Ad Creative by Size

The display ad market has similar representation among the most common ad formats, with banners accounting for 23.1 percent of impressions, followed closely by rectangles (22.7 percent) and non-standard units (22.1 percent). The most common specific ad sizes were medium rectangles (300 x 250 in dimension) at 18.6 percent, leaderboards (728 x 90) at 18.3 percent, and buttons (120 x 90) at 14.7 percent. Interestingly, pop-ups and pop-unders now represent less than 1 percent of all display ad impressions, most likely a function of the pop-up blockers now standard in most browsers. Finally, new OPA ad formats, such as the 970 x 418 pushdown and 468 x 648 XXL box, are just beginning to gain adoption and currently account for only 0.1 percent of impressions.

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SOURCE comScore, Inc.