IAB’s latest Rising Stars ad units – deployed by Innity

The IAB has identified 6 promising new ad units that provide the canvas for next generation brand advertising online – these have been adopted by Innity. Rising Stars ad units were selected by a cross-disciplinary group that included agency creative directors, media executives, publishers and ad operations specialists, who judged the ad formats for their potential to drive brand equity at scale.  These new ad units were chosen from a pool of 36 innovative submissions by more than two dozen companies based on the following criteria: These were selected based on the following criteria:

• Branding – How well does the ad format provide a canvas for creativity?
• User Experience – How well does the ad format positively impact user experience?
• Functionality – How does the ad format take advantage of online user behaviors and technologies?
• Page Integration – How does the ad format enhance the relationship between the ad and publisher page layout?
• Adoption – How easily could the ad format be widely adopted by publishers?

The ad units that were selected can be described as follows:

• Portrait: Originally known as Project Devil, AOL first introduced this 300 x 1,050 ad unit six months ago at IAB’s MIXX conference. Instead of running several smaller ads on a single page, AOL runs this single larger ad to reduce clutter and increase impact.
• Slider: Ad agency Genex, working with Unicast and Mediamind, submitted this unit for consideration. An overlay appears on the bottom of a page and mimics a feature found on touch screens: users can slide the entire page over to view the ad. Innity has successfully implemented this for its latest campaign on Mobile88. http://www.mobile88.com/index.asp
• Billboard: This ad unit, advanced by Google/YouTube, is also known as the masthead. It runs the full width of a page and can be kept open or closed by a website visitor. Cautioned one ad executive: “This masthead cannot be ignored. My hope is that we do not abuse it.”
• Filmstrip: Microsoft submitted this 3,000 x 300 unit, viewable through a 300 x 600 window. It, too, can also be controlled by a website visitor. Jennifer Creegan, senior director, brand display, at Microsoft Advertising, said a Chevrolet campaign launching on Microsoft in April will feature this format.
• Pushdown: Pictela designed this unit, which includes a visual toolbar that permits an advertiser to dynamically revise the creative.
• Sidekick: An expandable format advanced by Unicast, pushes page content leftward, revealing a larger unit.