• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, November 4, 2013

Sorry IAB (or anyone trying to standardize display advertising), but creatives are still convinced that good ads don’t fit into regulated ad units -- or at least those sitting on a Monday afternoon panel at OMMA Premium. No, good ads, “don’t necessarily fit into one of the IAB shapes,” said Douglas Rozen, Chief Innovation Officer at Meredith Xcelerated Marketing. “The [ads] that work the best in storytelling are not those.” Rather, “We want to punch through the page!” Unfortunately, as Rozen admits, “It’s really hard to [make those efforts mesh with] ad buying systems.”

For his part, Corey Gehrt, Strategy Director of Code and Theory, says “standard” online ad formats can play a constructive role in a brand’s broader strategy. “If you know your brand well enough, you can be open to telling different stories in different ways,” he said -- an approach he calls, “atomization.”