Glossary A–ZLetter O
Opportunity to see (OTS)
Opportunity to see, or OTS, refers to the opportunity to see an advertisement, meaning the chance of an impression, not an actual glance.
It counts people who were near an advertising medium in such a way that they could have noticed the advertising. In German it is called “Kontaktchance”.
The term is used in two ways. In standards for in-store advertising, OTS is a level of impression measurement: people who could have passed the advertising, as the best available proxy for a viewable impression. In traditional media planning, by contrast, OTS often means the average number of opportunities to see per person reached. An example of the first meaning: in an aisle with a screen, a sensor counts 800 people walking past in an hour.
Because both meanings exist side by side, operators should state in offers and reports which one they mean. OTS is not attention: walking past does not necessarily mean looking. For more precise statements, there are levels that also take the likelihood of seeing into account. Two OTS figures are only comparable if they were determined with the same method.