Posted May. 8, 2008
The Interactive Advertising Bureau this week introduced a set of guidelines aimed at bringing more standards to online video advertising--and ultimately to make the still burgeoning medium easier for advertisers to buy.
The new guidelines cover three basic forms of online video ad formats: linear ads, interruptive video spots which are typically of the pre-roll variety; non-linear ads, which include the increasingly popular 'overlay' ad units; and companion ads, banner-like ads that appear alongside Web videos.
The guidelines are the product of work conducted by the IAB's Digital Video Committee, which is composed of 145 leading media companies, including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, among others. In announcing the guidelines, IAB officials did not shy away from placing significance on the industry cooperation achieved in creating the guidelines and the impact they will have. David Doty, the IAB's senior vice president/thought leadership and marketing, predicted "seismic shifts" would occur in the online ad business as a result of their adoption.
The new guidelines, which are viewed by IAB members as suggestions rather than rules have many in the industry excited based on comments made during a panel discussion held during the recent IAB Leadership Forum in New York. When different sites and ad networks require unique creative specifics for video, "that hits our production budgets several different times," said Deva Bronson, digital media manager, KFC. That sort of dynamic makes it tough to recommend running an online video campaign on a wide range of sites, she added.
Adam Shlachter, senior partner/group director for MEC Interaction, concurred, adding that agencies often need to weigh the tradeoffs between the expected impact of adding more video sites to a buy with the associated trafficking and production labor. Sometimes those factors make it harder to justify online videos to clients. (Mike Shields, Mediaweek)
