The IAB unveiled a dynamic content ad standard that will move forward programmatic creative, which is open for public comment for the next month.
Instead of churning out ads with dozens of different messages for different channels, advertisers simply define all the creative components and variations.
Once served, the ads will dynamically assemble to adapt to the user and the page environment. Advertisers can encode ads for ski and beach vacations, for example, and those ads in turn would assemble differently to mesh with the publisher’s ad style.
“Having a standard [will] allow us to plumb the programmatic creative side of the business and deliver fully on the promise of programmatic,” said GroupM Chief Innovation Officer Cary Tilds.
Because the standard will make it easier to customize ads based on the environment and the audience, it should unleash more creativity in ad delivery.
“You are going to see more creative ads, and more of an appetite to run them because they will be easier to deploy,” said Alanna Gombert, GM of the IAB Tech Lab.
The standard will also benefit publishers who want to create more native ad experiences.
“There is a rise of nonstandard formats, and an explosion of screens,” Tilds said. “Emerging platforms can have their cake and eat it too. They can be super creative and have a differentiated product, while still using a standard.”
The standard will fix advertising’s “manufacturing problem,” Tilds said, automating what’s now a manual, labor-intensive process.
“Deploying complicated creative across multiple sites and multiple platforms is difficult,” Gombert said. The standard makes that process “repeatable and scalable.”
Personalized, responsive ads also could improve the advertising experience and boost performance. And they will provide another data feed agencies can use for optimization.
“Our intention [at GroupM] is to ensure we are providing more outcomes [and] deliver strong performance for clients,” Tilds said. “The only way you do that is with really strong data, which will require a structured system of metadata for creative components and asset variation.”
While the standard defines ad components, Tilds said it doesn’t limit creativity: “The standard is by no means prescriptive of creative approach. We simply want to mark the [ad] components.”
Once implemented, the standard will save time – and headaches. “We are trying to recoup ad ops people’s time and sanity,” Gombert said.
The dynamic ad standard project came out of another recent IAB standards shift that will help solve for cross-screen advertising and ad blocking. Both address how to create better internet advertising in an evolving ecosystem, Tilds said.
