Impressions

A metric that never determines if a unit of advertising made an impression on someone.

The Oxford dictionary cited by Google refers to the broader, non-industry-specific meaning of “impression” as “an idea, feeling, or opinion about something or someone,” and advertisers would be thrilled if those were actual human responses to the industry-specific impressions that they generate. Oxford continues to note that broadly-defined impressions are formed “on the basis of little evidence,” and there is indeed little evidence that advertising impressions generate an impression on any impressionable human.

Most tallies of impressions should be assumed to be touched up by impressionism, or at least the kind of artistry known as bullshit. A class on such artistry is hardly needed given how many such experts our industry already has.

Also, note that Pablo Picasso was not an impressionist. Still, in preparing to depict one of the figures in “Guernica” and his later lithograph series “The Bull,” he may have been a literal bullshit artist.