Impressions, Viewable

A newer class of impressions, or Impressions 2.0, are these viewable versions. These refer to “adverts” (according to Wikipedia), that were “actually seen by a human being.” Note the inclusion of “actually” to denote the shock that a living, conscious being may have been exposed to said adverts.

You don’t refer to street signs as messages that “actually” tell you where you’re going, and you don’t refer to gastroenterologists as physicians who “actually” remove intestinal polyps.

If the idea is to show adverts that have been seen, why refer to “viewable”? Between the term “viewable impressions” and the definition provided here, it exemplifies the industry’s mastery of bet-hedging. Read it as the industry declaring, “We would love to say that the advert has been viewed and that the viewer was a conscious Homo sapien, but we will settle for the possibility that a person may have viewed it, and we will call that an improvement.” Adding the redundant term “viewable” to the misplaced term “impression” is what counts as innovation in advertising.