• by Daisy Whitney , Op-Ed Contributor, July 30, 2012

Most digital video ad inventory today is not interactive, but that could change within two years when potentially half may be interactive, says Peter Minnium, head of brand initiatives at the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Minnium leads the IAB’s Rising Stars initiative for video, so he’s got a stake and an interest in this transition to interactivity. Even so, there’s reason to be hopeful that interactivity could become more widespread in video. The IAB has already seen at least 50 submissions for its Rising Stars video competition from technology vendors for digital video ad formats that include interactive features. That’s a large number of entries, given the number of vendors playing in this area. The purpose of the Rising Stars effort is to foster creativity and help publishers and vendors more broadly adopt next-generation ad formats.

“I estimate that well over 90% of digital video advertising is linear and non-interactive and that’s a huge problem because it’s just repurposed TV advertising then,” he said. “When we reach a glut of digital video advertising inventory we will see a price decline because there will be no value differentiation, so we need to establish right now the fact that when you see a digital video ad on a laptop, phone or tablet that you should be able to do more with it.”

The call for submissions closes July 31. In the early fall, the IAB will work with about 36 agencies to narrow down the selections to the best three to six interactive formats. The winners will be announced late this year or early in 2013, and a rollout should begin in the second quarter. Minnium said he would like to see approximately 50% of digital video ads include interactivity within about two years.

An interactive video ad could take a number of forms. It may look something like the toolbar on a Mac computer that shows the icons for apps on the screen. In a video ad, that could be a toolbar for Facebook, Twitter, email and other options. A toolbar format is easy to scale across vendors and publishers.

Other types of interactivity could include ads that allow users to tap or swipe for more information. YuMe actually rolled out an ad with those capabilities earlier this week that enable users to flip to an interactive screen with options such as store locators or coupon requests. In addition, video overlays that allow the video to roll in part of the screen and enable interaction in another portion are a possibility.