Rising Stars - New IAB Ad Formats
Bigger, Bolder... Better?
Remember that feeling when a television commercial achieves the all-too-rare
moment they all strive for, an emotional connection? How about the one you get when
the heightened volume nearly blows out the windows?
For the brands behind the ads, it’s a hit-or-miss proposition.
But a “hit” can stay in the minds of an entire generation of
viewers.
That’s the kind of impact the online advertising industry
is now going for, evidenced by six new formats recently
approved by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). They
are all bigger, bolder and, most Web marketers say, better.
But will the effect on users be that of a deeper emotional
connection or just louder noise?
The IAB recently announced the new designs at its Leadership
Conference in Laquinta, California. The six new formats
were selected out of 36 entries to the Rising Stars
competition submitted by 24 companies. The winners were
all on the larger-than-life side in several respects, honoring a
push from advertisers for louder messaging similar to that we
now see on television.
The IAB says the Rising Stars contest was the final step in
a movement toward greater creativity in online advertising
that began in 2009. It also says that 11 of the 18 current IAB
standard ad units have since been retired because of ineffectiveness
and lack of use, and some will be replaced by these
more brand-friendly formats.
The winning ads were submitted by YouTube, AOL, Microsoft,
Unicast, Pictela and Genex, and all were judged by a
cross-disciplinary group of agency creative directors, media
executives, publishers and ad operations specialists who
graded the ads on their potential to drive brand equity at scale.
The new formats were also judged on their branding ability, user
experience, functionality, page integration and potential rate of
adoption by publishers.
Each winning entry included high-resolution, interactive elements
such as videos, games and shopping capabilities, and the
new formats go by the names of Portrait, Slider, Billboard, Filmstrip,
Pushdown and Sidekick. Throughout the year, the IAB will
evaluate the adoption rate of the winners by website publishers to
determine which ones become part of its official lineup.
Google has already been running its new ad format on the
YouTube home page, called a Billboard because the major movie
studios have been using it to show their trailers. In addition to
the full-page width of the ads, one of the things that appealed to
the IAB was the ability for users to close the ads with a single click.
From AOL’s Project Devil comes the Portrait format, which is
a relatively massive 300 x 1,050-pixel unit designed with plugand-
play functionality. The IAB selected this unit not only for its
large canvas but also because the judges said it balances well with
the content of a Web page.
Another format gaining a lot of attention lately is the Filmstrip
from Microsoft. On a 300 x 3,000 unit, the ads are viewable
through multiple 300 x 600 windows that are fully controlled
by the user — answering to the IAB’s call for a more emotional
and engaging brand experience without taking away from the
publisher’s content.
“In the constant ebb and flow of creative brand advertising
online, one thing is clear from the Rising Stars submissions,” says
Peter Minnium, a judge in the competition and former managing
director of Lowe Worldwide. “If the creative community and the
brands they represent are inspired by the canvas they are given, we
are set to experience a renaissance of more and better brand
advertising on the Web.”
The real test for the new ad units will come from the publishers
who choose to adopt them or not. And they, of course, are
ultimately judged by users.


Leave Your Comment
Login to CommentBecome a Member
Not already a part of our community?
Sign UpSign up to participate in the discussion. It's free and quick.