The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released guidelines for digital video in-stream advertising formats, which it anticipates will promote buying and selling for this emerging Internet media.
“These guidelines respond to the very real market need of simplification and standardization that will continue to propel the explosive growth of online digital video,” said in a statement Mike Hurt, director of industry development at Microsoft Corp. and co-chair of the IAB’s Digital Video Committee.
A committee comprised of 145 companies active in the creation and distribution of digital video advertising contributed to the development of the guidelines. Companies that follow the guidelines will be listed as compliant on the IAB’s Web site and will be allowed to use an IAB ad format compliance seal on their Web sites.
The purpose of the guidelines is to allow advertisers to focus on the creative and message, while using standardized ad formats.
The recommendations cover issues related to click functionality, advertising duration and especially technical specifications. Some examples of the less technical recommendations include the following:
· Capping the frequency of advertising and disclosing such practices to advertising buyers
· Setting maximum 15 or 30 second ad duration times for linear video advertising presented in much the same way as TV commercials, while using 60-second formats sparingly
· Allowing ad duration to continue longer if the user continues to interact with the advertising
· Enabling all interactive buttons such as pause and zoom, with the exception of fast play
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