IAB Releases HTML5 Guidelines For Digital Ads
- by Mark Walsh @markfwal, May 6, 2013
With more
publishers and agencies turning to responsive design to adapt to a post-PC world, HTML5 is playing a growing role in Web development. But with adoption of the open Web standard still at an early
stage, the Interactive Advertising Bureau has issued a new set of guidelines for using HTML5 to create and run digital advertising.
Released Monday for public comment, “HTML5
for DigitalAdvertising 1.0: Guidance for Ad Designers & Creative Technologists” is aimed at providing best practices and formal ad formats for HTML5 technology.
It addresses areas
such as HTML5 display ads, file and ad unit size, code compressions, in-banner video advertising, efficient ad creative packaging, and ad server compatibility. The guidelines also include an HTML5
Wiki.
“With multiscreen advertising growing at such a continued rate and increasing in demand daily, it's mandatory that we (as an industry) demonstrate how marketers can
strategically and effectively bring HTML5 ad development into the mainstream,” said John Percival, senior creative technologist at PointRoll, and member of the IAB’s HTML5 Working
Group.
Proponents have long backed HTML5 as a more efficient way to create content and advertising that can run seamlessly across the desktop, laptops and mobile devices and different
types of operating systems and browsers. But the transition from Flash-based ads to HTML5 is still a work in progress, as the new document acknowledges.
“While HTML5 offers a
rich rendering experience across devices, the scarcity of design tools requires additional expertise,” it states. “The operational costs of shifting from visual design to code-based design
are magnified when publishers and ad developers lack a common framework for HTML5 ad optimization.”
As opposed to Flash-formatted ads that integrate easily with Flash players on the
desktop, “some manual packaging is necessary to guarantee superior and complete delivery, as well as a uniform experience,” noted Steve Sullivan, IAB vice president, ad technology.
In relation to video used in ads, for example, "the video asset needs to be transcoded into a few different formats to ensure cross browser functionality.” IAB provides instruction on
video-tagging in HTML5.
The deadline for public comment on the HTML5 guidelines is June 10. Following that period, the IAB’s Ad Operations Council and Mobile Marketing Center of
Excellence will evaluate comments, make any needed changes and issue a final version.
The world is clearly going away from Flash and to HTML5 so its great the IAB is embracing this change. That being said the tools and frameworks don't make HTML5 available to just designers - it invites a true collaboration between design and engineering to built the best creative experiences and adapt those experiences across multi-platform. But in the end of the day, this is what will drive the best consumer experience as great creative across every device is just too big an opportunity to do anything else.
You can fuss all you want with ad formats, but the sober reality remains that by standardizing those formats, we enable the very banner blindness that has rendered the current formats virtually impotent; proving once again that in an on-demand media world, no one demands more ads - newly formatted or otherwise.
In the early days of the automobile, you had to be a mechanic if you wanted to drive a car. It's kind of amazing that you still need to be an engineer if you want to run best-in-class advertising on the Web.
For the record at Addroid.com we've made it _very_ easy to author an HTML5 in-banner video ad that can be trafficked in standard placements via your favorite ad server, network, or DSP. Ad are made in minutes in a code-free environment.
We've been successfully creating Flash animations and exporting them through an add-on called Swiffy. Google suggested it to us and it's working so far very well.