IAB Digital Video Ad Format Guidelines

Last week, the IAB released video ad format guidelines for publishers, advertisers, and agencies. Because video encompasses a lot, the scope of the guidelines only covers in-stream video. The formats outlined by the IAB are exactly what's needed for the industry and covers the highest priority areas in a sensible manner.

In-banner video is covered under rich media guidelines. The most important aspect there, as part of the user experience, is that audio is user-initiated. In-text video is a minimal part of the user experience. Standardization isn't an issue.

The next area of standardization for publishers for video is measurement of each of these video ads. The key is determination of a set of measures that would be standard campaign reporting. Many of these are already provided in-depth by rich media providers like Pointroll for their ad units. This needs to extend to the publisher and/or ad server side, in terms of what is provided to advertisers and agencies.

Video ad impressions should only count when associated with user-requested content. For in-stream video, these impressions correspond to a specific piece of user-requested video content (URL). As part of a standardized set of metrics, publishers need to provide the percentage of impressions with user-initiated audio for the ad unit (where applicable), a key measure of the campaign's engagement (or at least eye-catching ability). As for video that automatically plays when a page loads (think the front page of espn.go.com), the page was still user-requested. However, the video was not specifically user-requested. Hence, it ought to be considered less engaging to the viewer than if he/she had requested the piece of video content. The counter example to ESPN would be a video URL linked from the CNN front page on which a viewer clicks. Ultimately, though, this differentiation of value likely falls to advertisers and agencies to assess among various publishers.

Online Video Ad Format Experimentation

Many, if not most, of the big Web video publishers are experimenting with a variety of ad formats. Everyone is familiar with pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll. These early ad formats have been essential in bridging the comfort gap for mainstream advertisers between traditional TV spots and digital video.

Some of the uniquely digital formats that have been utilized in the past few years are overlays and companion units, of which many are rich media ads. One video publisher has found through its analysis that the more interactive the unit, the better it is perceived by viewers. Complex games with multiple elements perform better than simple games. Simple games perform better than rich-media but non-playable ad units, which are in turn better than static display ad units.

The stories highlighting Hulu's efforts to allow consumers to choose their advertising are exciting. Think "Choose Your Own Adventure Books" in the 80s. What Media Contacts has confirmed with our own research is that there is no single bucket of viewers and their perception of online video ads. Allowing viewers to choose among different spots is nice. What's better is
being allowed to choose between a 3-minute trailer with uninterrupted programming and a show with a few short commercial interruptions.

Online shows have brought back (and in most cases, features prominently) the single-advertiser sponsorship.

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