5 New Year’s Resolutions for Display Advertisers

(Cross posted from the AdWords Agency Blog)

Google’s Dan Taylor presents at Digiday Agency event Dec. 12, 2011

It’s that time of year again, the time to reflect on 2011 and think about resolutions for the new year. We may not be able to help you lose those extra 5 lbs., but we can inform some New Year’s resolutions for your business.

Last week, Google’s Dan Taylor presented at the Digiday Agency event on the 5 New Year’s Resolutions for Display Advertisers. See video and summary below.

Resolution # 1: I will be strategic in how I use remarketing

Remarketing is like plugging a leaky bucket, where the leak is website visitors leaving your site, and the plug is display ads that bring past visitors back to your site.

There are many ways to ‘plug’ the leak, but we offer up the follow strategies to be the most effective in doing so.

• Target based on audience: Layering demographic targeting on top of remarketing campaigns can help you tailor the message even more. For example, have one message for men, and a different one for women.
  
• Target based on intent: You can send a general message to homepage visitors and product-oriented reminders to visitors that browsed product pages but didn’t make a purchase. Using a creative with dynamically related products is a great way to do this.
  
• Expand your list sources: Some of our most effective remarketing customers use several sources to get their lists, such as YouTube mastheads and channels, their main website and campaign landing pages. Expanding the lists enables you to reach more potential customers.

Resolution # 2: I will use video to its full potential

Video is a great way to reach customers, yet it is often underutilized. Here are the best ways to use video to its fullest potential.

• With the latest changes to the YouTube homepage, we’ve pivoted the YouTube site experience to focus on channels and a socially-driven feed, the contents of which are controlled by the left hand sidebar. This gives marketers a powerful opportunity to enhance their brand exposure.
  
• Through the new AdWords for video front end, we’ve drastically reduced the time it takes to create a video. Easily run click-to-play or TrueView in-display formats across Google Display Network.
  
• We’ve also found that rich media, in tandem with video, is more effective than simple Flash. When you’re running rich media campaigns, think about including video to increase purchase intent.

Resolution # 3: I will fuse social media with display

Making display ads social increases the conversation with your customers. Here are some ways that this can be accomplished:

• Make social media a primary destination: Try linking Trueview ads back to a similarly branded channel for a great social experience.
  
• Social interactions within the banner: Actually having users interact with the banner (by playing a game, watching videos, etc.) and then having them share their experiences through social media continues the conversation.
  
• Bring social media endorsements in the banner: This is becoming more popular, and is a great way for friends to share recommendations.

Resolution # 4: I will go mobile with my display campaigns

Just as users are now moving more and more to a multi-screen experience via desktop, mobile, and display, so must marketers think about a display strategy that isn’t siloed.

• Tablet targeting: Users expect more from tablet ads and are increasingly using these for online shopping. We support tablet targeting including zeroing in on tablet audiences by device, location, time of day and contextually.
  
• Get smarter with smartphone targeting: Finding what’s right for your business is key here. With so many format options to choose from that are specific to mobile devices (click to video, click to map, click to call) it’s worth it to think what could be the most effective for your business.

Resolution #5: There’s a perfect ad for everyone.

It’s really the biggest resolution we’re focused on at Google that encompasses all the other ones and it’s adopting the philosophy that 'There’s a perfect ad for everyone.'

Our recipe for the perfect ad for everyone is driven by simplicity and also by the technology that’s enabling us to customize the advertising experience for everyone at scale.

There’s a simple recipe to the perfect ad: The right person + the right message + the right time + the right context = the perfect ad.

What are your new year’s resolutions for your business? Let us know by tweeting @GoogleDisplay.

Mary Shirley, Product Marketing

Streamlined Workflow for AdMob Rich Media in DoubleClick Studio and DFA

Since the launch of DoubleClick Studio in April 2009, we’ve streamlined the workflow for thousands upon thousands of rich media creatives for advertiser’s online campaigns. In May 2011, DoubleClick Rich Media creatives were certified to run in AdMob inventory. Now, we’re building on these two innovations to improve the efficiency of mobile display campaigns, too.

This Saturday we added support to DoubleClick Studio and DoubleClick for Advertisers for “Mobile In-App” AdMob rich media formats. With this addition, it’s much easier for creative agencies and media agencies to work together to build, preview, manage and serve mobile display campaigns across AdMob inventory. AdMob’s mobile display ad network is comprised of 89,000+ mobile sites and apps across 230 countries. Mobile advertisers will benefit by combining the efficiency of DoubleClick tools with the scale of AdMob inventory.

Here’s what the creation of a new “Mobile In-App” creative looks like in the DoubleClick Studio interface:

You can preview what your “Mobile In-App” creative will look like on a tablet or phone. The preview tool in DoubleClick Studio includes options to view the ad in landscape and portrait mode and the ability to zoom to 100% or 50% resolutions. Here’s what a tablet preview of a “Mobile In-App” creative looks like:

Just as you can with other rich media formats in DoubleClick Studio, you can now push a “Mobile In-App” creative directly to DFA. The ad will show up to traffickers when they import advertiser-level creatives, as in the screenshot here:

Once the “Mobile In-App” creative is in DFA, traffickers can change properties of the creative, such as its landing page, much like they do for other rich media formats. Here’s how a “Mobile In-App” creative looks in DFA:

Initially, all campaigns and creatives using this new workflow will run through our full-service team. Please contact your DoubleClick Rich Media representative if you're interested in running Mobile In-App creatives or campaigns.

Research shows that rich media campaigns across multiple screens work better than those targeting just one screen. By making the mobile rich media workflow easier, we hope this helps you include captivating mobile display ads in your next campaign and drive campaign performance across screens.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

Seven Rich Media Innovations for Your Next Campaign

Today, technical experts from our rich media team will present seven rich media innovations to a room full of developers, programmers and technologists within creative agencies at Creative Sandbox | Behind the Screens. This is part of our ongoing effort to help foster more relevant, more real-time and more interactive display ads across screens. Below you can play a video about each of the seven innovations being covered. We look forward to seeing these ideas come to life in live campaigns.

Dynamic Creative with DoubleClick Rich Media
Use multiple headlines, offers, calls-to-action, product images, landing pages -- even videos -- all within a single creative.

QR Code in a DoubleClick Rich Media Ad
Provide a bridge from online display ads to consumers’ smartphones with QR codes.

Augmented Reality in a DoubleClick Rich Media Ad
With augmented reality in an ad, all people need is a webcam and a simple printout or camera phone to experience immersive games or stunning 3D product demonstrations.


Credits: Carmichael Lynch for the Living Sasquatch example (www.livingsasquatch.com); Euro RSCG, Media Contacts and Volvo for the Volvo S60 augmented reality ad

+1 Button in a DoubleClick Rich Media Ad
The +1 button in an ad allows consumers to recommend advertised products or services to contacts and connections across the Internet.


Credits: AKQA for Gears of War 3

Twitter in a DoubleClick Rich Media Ad
Combine social media with the reach of paid advertising by including Twitter in a DoubleClick Rich Media ad.


Credits: Media Contacts for Volvo XC60 and Tribal DDB for VW Passat

Social Toolbar in a DoubleClick Rich Media Ad
Bring sharing to the forefront of any ad with a social toolbar.

Interactive Page Takeover with DoubleClick Rich Media
Use an interactive page takeover to transform a user's favorite web page into a full-screen ad that surprises and delights.


Credits: Discovery Communications for River Monsters; OMD, Tag Worldwide and Intel for Intel Core i5

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

+1 Button in DoubleClick Rich Media: Attract and Showcase Social Recommendations

Last March, Google introduced the +1 button on search results and ads to make it easier for people to get recommendations from the people they trust right when they’re searching. With just a single click, the +1 button lets signed-in Google users publicly recommend content to friends and contacts. Since then, webmasters have been installing the +1 button on their pages. The button has already been installed on over a million websites across the web with over 4 billion impressions daily. These +1 recommendations tell others, “This is something to check out!”

Starting now, advertisers have the option to include the +1 button in any DoubleClick Rich Media ad. This provides advertisers with the ability to include the +1 button in our third-party rich media creatives and to control the inclusion of the +1 button at the creative level. This new option provides rich media advertisers with a simple and scalable way to increase positive and public advocacy of their brand online.

Xbox and AKQA London have worked with DoubleClick to include the +1 button in their upcoming rich media ads for the Gears of War 3 release.

Beginning in October, the +1 button will also appear across display ads served directly through Google Display Network (GDN) and in select mobile inventory. Wherever a +1 action originates, be it from Google’s search engine, in a display or mobile ad on GDN, in a DoubleClick Rich Media ad or from a web page, the +1 endorsement applies universally to a single page. Each +1 action adds to the overall +1 count for a page.

We look forward to helping advertisers accelerate social recommendations of their content by adding the +1 button to DoubleClick Rich Media ad units. For more details and best practices on including the +1 button in DoubleClick Rich Media ad units, please download our overview here. To get started with +1 in your next campaign, contact your DoubleClick Rich Media account representative.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

Delivering Mobile Rich Media Ads to Mobile Apps with AdMob

In January, we announced mobile support in DoubleClick Studio for rich media ads that are based on HTML5 standards. Today, we’re expanding the number of places that these creatives can be delivered in mobile. Now, both standard and rich media ads trafficked in DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) can run on AdMob inventory. Acquired by Google last May, AdMob is a mobile display ad network comprised of 89,000+ mobile sites and apps across 230 countries. DoubleClick is the only 3rd party ad serving platform from which rich media ads can be delivered into the AdMob network.

Today, through the mobile rich media beta with AdMob, advertisers can build HTML5 ads in DoubleClick Studio and run them across select apps on the AdMob network. AdMob’s certification of DoubleClick Rich Media covers three main HTML5 mobile rich media formats: banners, interstitials and expandables. When HTML5 ads are built in DoubleClick Studio, trafficked in DFA and run on AdMob, advertisers benefit from the integration of their mobile rich media metrics within the same reporting system they’re using for other channels such as search, online display and in-stream.

To date, advertisers have enjoyed the ability to build an ad once and run it anywhere with online display and rich media ads. Our work with AdMob gets us one step closer to making this possible for mobile display advertising too. At Google, we are committed to helping mobile scale and perform even better for brand advertisers.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

New! Rich Media Metrics in DFA Analytics(beta)

The power of DFA Analytics rests in its visually-driven views of campaign performance with easy-to-understand charts and graphs. Drill-down reporting allows you to view performance at multiple levels and across dimensions such as geography, browser, operating system and connection speed, regardless of whether targeting was implemented during campaign setup.

We’re pleased to announce that with this latest release of DFA Analytics, we’re making the tool even more powerful by incorporating standard DoubleClick Rich Media metrics. New metrics include:

• Impressions
  
• Click Rate
  
• Backup Image
  
• Average Display Time
  
• Interaction Rate and Time
  
• Number of Expansions and Expansion Time
  
• Number of Video Plays and Average Video View Time

DFA Analytics updates the data continuously throughout the day and provides you with a quick and easy way to glance at reporting and verify that your recently trafficked campaigns have gone live and are running smoothly. For example, you could monitor potential issues with your campaign by checking on the number of backup images being served up.

Rich Media metrics in DFA Analytics also allow you to drill down your analysis to any level, from account on down to advertisers, campaign, site, ad and creative. Graph results to compare different Rich Media metrics such as the average display time against average video view time over time. Get deeper insight into how your campaign is performing over time by charting results by day, week or month. Go further by benchmarking a campaign’s interaction rate against that of the whole advertiser. Or get a quick pulse on the success of your in-banner video ads by viewing the number of video plays your campaign is receiving.

We’re continuously adding new features to DoubleClick for Advertisers, so expect to see frequent improvements to DFA Analytics in the coming months.

Posted by Aaron Nelson, Product Manager

Bringing Rich Media to Mobile with HTML5

Today, DoubleClick Rich Media makes interactive, video-rich advertisements for the mobile web possible with added support in DoubleClick Studio for HTML5. Traditionally, the core assets that rich media ads are based on have been developed using Adobe Flash. Now, with support for ads developed to the HTML5 web standard, creative agencies can manage rich media ads for the mobile web in DoubleClick Studio, right alongside the Flash-based ads that they are already managing.

HTML5 makes it possible to improve ad engagement levels among the growing number of people who browse the web from devices that don’t have Flash, such as Apple iOS devices like the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, and all Android devices without Flash installed. With continuous growth in mobile web-enabled devices, advertisers need a way to captivate and engage with mobile audiences. This release makes that possible.

If you’re interested in seeing impactful creative units on the mobile web for campaigns you’re involved with, download our information sheet. Then contact a DoubleClick Rich Media account manager or fill out the form here.

This is just one small piece of Google’s overall approach to mobile advertising. To stay abreast of all of Google’s innovations in mobile advertising, visit the Google Mobile Ads blog and Google Mobile Ads site.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

Rich Media Grows to 10% of the Display Advertising Pie

Back in June of 2009, we highlighted the percentage of total display advertising volume going to rich media ads in the introduction of our “Brand Value of Rich Media and Video Ads” report. The headline on the first figure in the report stated, “Rich Media Only 6% of Ad Serving Volume in 2008.”

Checking back in, we find that, based on data collected by The Nielsen Company during Q3 2010, rich media volume is up -- by a lot. Today, rich media ads make up 10% of ad serving volume -- a whopping 4 percentage point increase since our report was published.

Look for rich media volume to continue to grow as more advertisers seek out the benefits of incorporating video and interactivity into their display advertising campaigns. After all, anything Flash ads can do rich media ads can do better.

Posted by Sally Cole, Product Marketing Manager

DoubleClick Rich Media Services is Hiring

Do you want to be at the forefront of the advertising industry? Think you have the talent to keep innovating ads in this fast paced business? A number of openings are now available with Google's exciting and innovative rich media team. You'll be working with some of the biggest creative agencies and media agencies to create interesting new ways of advertising in a creative and dynamic way on high profile sites. If you're interested, or know someone who would be interested, take a look at the full job specs below:

• Rich Media Technical Support Coordinator - Paris
• Rich Media Technical Support Coordinator - Dusseldorf
• Interactive Designer, Rich Media Technical Services - Mountain View, CA or New York
• Rich Media Flash Developer - San Francisco, CA
• Rich Media Technical Web Consultant - San Francisco, CA

Posted by Sally Cole

Recap from the 4th Annual Digital Movie Advertising Creative Showcase (DMACS)

Yesterday, we celebrated the best creative work in digital movie marketing with top creative agencies and movie studios at the 4th Annual DMACS event. If you recall from our call for entries, this awards program invited submissions across four awards categories: Home Entertainment Rich Media Display Ad, Multi-Channel Cross Media Campaign, YouTube Creative Award and Theatrical Release Rich Media Display Ad. Take a look at the videos below to see the amazing creative work from the top nominees in each category then read on to find out who won.

Best Home Entertainment Rich Media Display Ad Nominees

Congratulations to:

• Fast & Furious by Ignited, LLC and NBC Universal
• WALL-E by Deadline Advertising and Walt Disney Studios
• Watchmen by AvatarLabs and Warner Bros.

YouTube Creative Award Nominees

Congratulations to:

• G-Force by BLT & Associates and Walt Disney Studios
• The Haunting in Connecticut by Division 13 Design Group and Lionsgate
• My Bloody Valentine by The Visionaire Group and Lionsgate

Best Multi-Channel Cross Media Campaign Nominees

Congratulations to:

• Fast & Furious by The Visionaire Group and Universal Pictures
• I Love You, Beth Cooper by Earthbound Media Group and 20th Century Fox
• Coraline by Wieden+Kennedy and Laika Studios/Focus Features

Best Theatrical Release Rich Media Display Ad Nominees

Congratulations to:

• Bruno by The Visionaire Group and Universal Pictures
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by AvatarLabs and Warner Bros.
• Star Trek by AvatarLabs and Paramount Pictures
• The Haunting in Connecticut by Division 13 Design Group and Lionsgate
• Valkyrie by Palisades Interactive and MGM

And the winners Are...

• WALL-E by Deadline Advertising and Walt Disney Studios for Best Home Entertainment Rich Media Ad
• My Bloody Valentine by The Visionaire Group and Lionsgate for the YouTube Creative Award
• Coraline by Wieden+Kennedy and Laika Studios/Focus Features for Best Multi-Channel Cross Media Campaign
• Star Trek by AvatarLabs and Paramount Pictures for Best Theatrical Release Rich Media Display Ad

We heartily congratulate the winners for their spectacular creative executions and dedication to the craft of movie marketing.

Posted by Sally Cole

Call for Entries to the Digital Movie Advertising Creative Showcase

Online campaigns for theatrical and home video movie releases have some of the most creative and innovative executions. To celebrate the best of movie marketing, we're opening up a call for entries to our 4th Annual Digital Movie Advertising Creative Showcase awards program. Movie marketers and creative agencies are invited to submit up to three entries per category. This year's categories are:

Theatrical Release Rich Media Display Ad(s): Any rich media ad or set of rich media ads used to promote a theatrical movie release.

Home Entertainment Rich Media Display Ad(s): Any rich media ad or set of rich media ads used to promote a home video movie release.

Multi-Channel Cross Media Campaign: Any home video or theatrical movie campaign that involves at least three interactive digital elements (one of which must be rich media ads) as part of a holistic campaign including, but not limited to:

• Website
• Rich media ads
• Search campaign
• Alternate reality game (ARG)
• Mobile
• Viral video or webisodes
• Virtual world
• User-Generated content
• Social networking
• Online game(s)
• Digital outdoor
• DVD/Blue-Ray interactive experience/extras

Multi-channel, cross media digital campaign submissions may involve more than one creative agency, but all agencies must be listed and give permission for submission.

YouTube Creative Award: Any home entertainment or theatrical movie campaign creative that included YouTube in its execution -- YouTube homepage "masthead" creative, brand channels, contests, or original video creative uploaded to YouTube to engage the community.

The winners of each category will receive recognition by their industry peers, the opportunity to present to a live audience at the Director's Guild of America in Los Angeles, inclusion in the event's video reel, two award trophies (one each for the movie studio and creative agency) and two Flip Mino mini digital camcorders!

The deadline for entries is Friday, September 18 -- so don't delay if you plan to enter. We look forward to seeing the amazing work in this space.

Posted by Sally Cole

New Report Highlights How to Align Ad Format Choice to Branding Goals

For every online display campaign, advertisers must decide what ad formats to use for best results. To help, DoubleClick teamed up with Dynamic Logic to study the impact of ad format selection on branding goals. In the joint report titled "The Brand Value of Rich Media and Video Ads," we compare the branding strengths of four common display advertising formats:

• Image - GIF or JPG ads
• Simple Flash - Ads with a short animation and single click-through link
• Rich Media with Video - Ads capable of responding to user interaction, such as mouseovers, keyboard inputs, or clicks without a click-through, that also contain video
• Rich Media without Video - Ads capable of responding to user interaction, such as mouseovers, keyboard inputs, or clicks without a click-through, that do not contain video

The report provides detailed information on how each of these formats impacts aided brand awareness, online ad awareness, message association, brand favorability and purchase intent. For example, study findings show that, on average:

• Rich Media formats are the most successful at driving purchase intent
• Rich Media without Video is unique among the formats in its ability to positively impact all five brand metrics
• Simple Flash is the least effective of the ad formats studied
• For brand favorability, aided brand awareness and purchase intent metrics, Rich Media with Video provides a statistically significant improvement over Simple Flash at a 90% confidence level

The report concludes with a cheat sheet to help guide your ad format decisions and suggests best practices for achieving branding goals.

Download the PDF report here for free, no registration required.

Posted by Sally Cole

Create and Manage Rich Media Ads More Efficiently with DoubleClick Studio

Over the last several months, we've been working hard to develop a new tool for creative teams who build rich media ads and the media agencies and publishers they work with. The result of our efforts is DoubleClick Studio, a free rich media production and web-based workflow tool designed to streamline development processes for creative teams and to provide more control over turnaround times. We've designed DoubleClick Studio to significantly improve upon the existing Ad Kit, and pave the way for future innovation in rich media.

To learn more about DoubleClick Studio or to fill out a form showing your interest, please visit studio.doubleclick.com. As creative teams migrate to this new tool, users will also be able to log in here, download components for Flash, and access the web-based workflow.

Here are a few of the features we think creative teams will really like:

• Improved workflow that gets preview links into client's hands faster
• A fully searchable archive of work structured by clients, campaigns and creatives
• Integrated QA processes that get errors identified and fixed earlier in the process
• Full range of intuitive Flash components and full APIs in both AS2 and AS3
• Direct upload to DART for Advertisers ensures smooth transition to traffickers for approved creatives

Testimonials

Josh Race of Ogilvy RedWorks, a member of the DoubleClick Studio beta program, has this to say: "DoubleClick Studio has a clean interface and you will never get lost trying to figure out where you are, which is uncommon amongst ad-serving tools. Our developers are all now self-sufficient and not depending on the one guy who knows his way around some wonky interface."

Will Campbell, also a beta member and owner of ARC Media Group, a creative agency based in Southern California, says, "DoubleClick Studio can greatly improve the workflow for any interactive studio working with Flash. From development to getting creatives ready for publishing it has increased our productivity and decreased the amount of steps we take to accomplish different tasks. It really shows that DoubleClick has given a lot of thought into not only increasing productivity on the development side, but also improving the workflow on the administrative side."

Benefits for Media Agencies

Although not direct users of the authoring tool, media agencies will also benefit from DoubleClick Studio and its integration with DART for Advertisers (DFA), enabling agencies to streamline the process for getting rich media campaigns approved and live. With DoubleClick Studio rolling out on a global basis, it is now easier than ever to manage local, regional and global campaigns on a single authoring platform. Here are some of the benefits:

• Direct link between DoubleClick Studio and DART platforms for instant transfer of creative
• Automated creative checks reduce approval time for campaigns to go live
• Preview links include a view into all rich media events that can triggered by the ad for easy testing, review and sign-off

More Details

For a quick tour of DoubleClick Studio, take a look at this short video from Shamim Samadi, product manager for DoubleClick Rich Media.

For those of you who have used DoubleClick Rich Media tools in the past, we will continue to support the Ad Kit though we do not plan to make future upgrades. We also want to note that, while we intend for DoubleClick Studio to make rich media production more efficient for agencies, advertisers and publishers who would like to own the entire process themselves, we remain fully committed to the highest levels of customer service.

To learn more, visit studio.doubleclick.com or contact your DoubleClick representative.

Posted by Ryan Hayward

DoubleClick Rich Media Can Support New Outsized Ad Units Now

Today, the Online Publishers Association (OPA) announced that over two dozen members plan to introduce larger format ads on their sites by July 2009. They've proposed the following units:

• The Fixed Panel (recommended dimension is 336 wide x 860 tall), which looks naturally embedded into the page layout and scrolls to the top and bottom of the page as a user scrolls.
• The XXL Box (recommended dimension is 468 wide x 648 tall), which has page-turn functionality with video capability.
• The Pushdown (recommended dimension is 970 wide x 418 tall), which opens to display the advertisement and then rolls up to the top of the page.

For publishers and agencies looking to get a head start, these units can be done with DoubleClick Rich Media today and are easily implemented in either the DART for Publishers or DART for Advertisers ad serving systems.

Posted by Sally Cole

Get Your Expanding Ad on the Google Content Network with DoubleClick

Yesterday, the AdWords team announced the launch of their beta test for expandable rich media ads on the Google content network (GCN). The beta test is open to U.S. advertisers and agencies participating in Google's third-party ad serving program, of which DoubleClick is a certified vendor.

DoubleClick Rich Media has received an additional level of certification from Google for the expandable format. This extra level of certification is necessary because expanding ads on GCN need to intelligently expand in the correct direction depending on the placement of the ad slot on the page. For example, if the ad is displayed in a skyscraper on the right side of the page, the ad needs to "know" in real time to expand to the left.

Due to this special consideration during ad creation, DoubleClick clients that wish to run expandable ads on the GCN should be sure to loop their account manager and campaign manager in as early as possible. We look forward to helping you take advantage of this exciting new feature to make your campaigns more effective.

Posted by Sally Cole

See the Big Creative for Las Vegas

DoubleClick data shows a strong correlation between larger creative sizes and results, such as higher interaction rates and click-through rates. So, this large format unit by Las Vegas Convention & Visitor's Authority and R&R Partners is sure to please. You can view the impressive 976x250 creative in our gallery here, or by clicking the screenshot below.

This ad puts a Vegas vacation top of mind through a video contest for the YouTube community. The contest invites viewers to create a video about why they need a Vegas vacation. Viewers of the ad are directed to the contest homepage on YouTube or the landing page at VisitLasVegas.com.

Posted by Sally Cole

Congrats to the Best in Digital Movie Advertising

Last week, DoubleClick hosted the third annual Digital Movie Advertising Creative Showcase awards event. This event honors the best rich media creative work in digital movie advertising. This year five finalists were recognized for their work in three categories: best home entertainment rich media ads, best theatrical rich media ads and best multi-channel digital campaign.

In the home entertainment category, congratulations go out to:

• AvatarLabs and Warner Bros./New Line for Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

In the theatrical release category, congratulations go out to:

• AvatarLabs and Sony Pictures for Pineapple Express
• Backward Heroes and New Line Cinema for Journey to the Center of the Earth

In the multi-channel digital campaign category, congratulations go out to:

• Backward Heroes and New Line Cinema for The Golden Compass
• Palisades Interactive and MGM for COLLEGE

We would like to give an extra congratulations to Palisades Interactive and MGM for the Best in Show award for their work on the multi-channel digital campaign for COLLEGE. This campaign used rich media expanding ads, a widget ad, Flash banners and a large social media presence to position COLLEGE as a hilarious, must-see movie.

To make it possible for you to learn more about these winning campaigns, we've made the show guide available for download here.

Posted by Sally Cole

ClickZ's "Rich Media Research Roundup"

Today, Tessa Wegert contributed an article to The ClickZ Network that perfectly sums up our new "Creative Insights on Rich Media" report. Check out her article here, then download the report.

Among the report's main takeaways:

• Consider using video within rich media units when performance goals include click-through rate, expansion rate or expanding time
• More specifically, consider using in-page video when performance goals include interaction rate or video complete rate
• Additionally, consider larger creative sizes when performance goals include click-through rate or interaction rate

Thanks for the mention, Tessa!

Posted by Sally Cole

DoubleClick Rich Media Announces Support for Widget Advertising

The evolution of digital advertising has grown from a tool for direct marketing and brand awareness initiatives into a vehicle for content distribution and delivery. Today, DoubleClick is introducing a new rich media format for interactive agencies and marketers, Widget Ads, which provide the perfect distribution channel for this strategy. This widget format is designed to extend media dollars and reach for marketers by allowing users to "grab" an ad and place it on their personalized homepage, blog or social network.

We've focused on making widget advertising easy for our clients. Using both the creative development process and ad serving tools your teams are familiar with, you can create interactive Flash widgets for distribution on Facebook, MySpace, iGoogle, and many other social networks. With DoubleClick, widget advertising is executed by converting a new or existing rich media unit into a widget that can be shared virally, managing it in DART for Advertisers (DFA), and watching those widget impressions grow!!! Marketers will appreciate the built-in ability to keep the message fresh by updating widget creative in real-time across social networks.

Use Widget Ads to gain insight into viral distribution patterns, reach and frequency of widget display impressions, and the effect of widgets on conversion. We invite clients and online marketing professionals to incorporate widget advertising into their campaigns. Contact our sales team to get started.

Posted by Sonjoy Ganguly

Epson Showcases their Brand Message in HD Quality

Yesterday, we released a new feature called HD Video that makes it possible for a rich media ad to expand into a fullscreen video ad in HD quality. We worked with Adobe on this release to incorporate their latest Flash technology into our fullscreen capabilities.

Epson is the first advertiser to use this feature. A special thanks goes out to them and their creative agency, Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners (BSSP) for being innovative clients. Jordan Kretchmer, BSSP's associate creative director, shared with us why HD Video made such a good fit for the campaign. He said, “Throughout this campaign, we aimed to present Epson printers with a human touch and personality. DoubleClick Rich Media with HD Video was exactly the type of solution that helped us achieve our goal. HD Video lets us deliver our creative in a way that reflects the high quality of Epson products. Consumers aren’t used to seeing such pristine video online, so we expect the new HD technology to capture peoples’ attention like a standard video unit never could.”

To learn more about HD Video, read the Adotas article titled, “DoubleClick Goes High-Def in Bid for Consumers’ Attention.”

Posted by Sally Cole