Two recent articles discussing the interesting triangle of Mobile, Rich Media and HTML5 are causing some buzz; one is the Mobile Marketer article asking  How HTML5 is changing the face of mobile, and the other is from the NMA claiming: iPad ad model isn’t leaping out for brands


 I would like to try and suggest an alternative view, if I may, entitled – “How digital advertising should change HTML5…”


So, it’s all great, really, when looking at the HTML5 rich media enabled on forbidden Flash devices, finally opening the gate for the type of engagement you would expect from rich media to bring to your fingertips.


But then, take this reality check:

You have your digital campaign, which runs cross a nice media mix; premium publisher placements and devices, including some fancy Flash for the online web, and some in-stream as well, and then some nice iPad executions. You’ve bought your media; your objectives are in place; creative have mocked it nicely; and you’re ready to make the most out of it!


Now what?  Reality calls.


You’d find that running HTML5 rich media across your media plan of different publishers is not easy, and getting reliable feedback on your executions is even less fun.


First, you need to make sure rich creative is customized and tested on each of the publishers to ensure HTML5 compatibility and avoid Javascript collisions; you’ll need to build your CSS cross browser and with loads of ‘If statements’ to allow it to fall gracefully, and you will need to discount canvas animation for some and a proper array of video assets for others.


And you will find yourself spending time and resources figuring out different metrics coming from each mobile network or publisher, crunching HTML5 rich media metrics with different ones coming from your web rich media flash assets.


Did anybody say scale?


Or, as it was best phrased by Tim Lawrence, head of digital strategy at MediaCom: “The honeymoon period is now over.”


It’s time to get down and dirty and make some serious progress on the fundamentals of HTML5 mobile and tablet rich media ad serving and get the feedback right and in time.


Let’s welcome industry wide initiatives such as ORMMA (an industry wide initiative for advertisers to have one common set of rules for displaying rich media ads across platforms) and then the IAB mobile guidelines that are now in the works to incorporate Rich Media mobile ad units as well.


Encouraged by the lessons we learned in the past decade surrounding online rich media, let’s apply them to HTML5 as a means to run and justify rich media for mobile and tablets;


In short, we should build HTML5 ad solutions with industry standards in mind.


By standardizing ad units, rich media ad calls, server side counting, 3^rd party cookie policy, conversion tracking in apps and video delivery, we’ll be able to free the industry to focus on a true rich media outcome for brands; enabling ways to weigh the engagement efforts in context and cross media  (I would use “comparing apples to apples” but apple has a whole different meaning these days… doesn’t it ?)


HTML5.  Love you.  But…

 Gefen Lamdan | Sr. Manager, Product Planning, Mobile

If you have a quick moment between tossing your next iPhone app, rushing to get an iPad and trying to recall where you left your 3D glasses… Take a minute to notice that CS5 is now GA .


I found myself a Zen moment to focus on the present (which is still for most cases Flash based…), and checked what Flash CS5 brings in for Rich Media Display Ad Production:

Eyeblaster Workshop is supported in Flash CS5 as is. You should be safe to upgrade from that perspective, and continue to easily create, test and upload ads using it. This also includes the new CS5, XML based FLA format, which can help teams work modularly with complex Flash projects parts.

What else in CS5 can help boost ad production efficiency and impact?

Spice up an ad’s experience with the new Physics Engine: Flash CS5 includes a simple way to associate gravity behavior to objects, making certain animations easier by using code or UI. A nice feature to utilize in Eyeblaster Full Homepage Takeovers, just like this one

Speed up ad localization with the TLF (Text Layout Framework) now built into Flash: This advanced text and typography engine makes it easier to localize also the Right-to-Left regions or even the East Asian horizontal within vertical text with over 30 writing systems including Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese and others.

If your client plays global, you are probably already familiar with Eyeblaster’s Smart Versioning Tool for ad localization, and you can combine the two for optimal results.

An additional feature in the area of localization is the new, multi fonts, embedding panel in case you have branded fonts you’re using.

Video Component on-Stage video preview – you can take the advantage of this one especially by using it for creating Action Script based cue points for animation sync, while watching the movie on stage.

Speed up ad coding features: All Eyeblaster Custom classes are right at your finger tips with the New Custom Class Shortcuts. Also the Integration with Flash Builder looks very useful; Flash Builder becomes your ActionScript editor within Flash projects.   And also, check out, of course, the code snippets for AS3.

Keep an eye on Ad Size using the new SWF history size control that allows you to maintain control over the Asset size, while the Workshop Ad Size Summary in the Eyeblaster Workshop Panel will keep in control over total ad size. So all in all, some useful features to look at. Looking forward to Flash Player 10.1 with more good stuff.

That’s it for now; welcome CS5, and a happy productive time to us all.

Gefen Lamdan, Sr. Mgr Product Planning

Eyeblaster HD Full Screen Experience for Windows Live Messenger Banners
Here is another interesting way to squeeze more juice out of the tiny, yet well respected, ad space at the bottom of the Windows Live Messenger friends list.

The Windows Live Messenger expandable format initiates a full screen HD video and lets users enter a whole new level of pixel size, video quality and interactive experience.


As HD video penetration becomes more widespread, and full screen video becomes an increasingly more natural interaction for users, the ability to align full screen video ad experiences across all interactive environments is emerging as a powerful way to capitalize on these opportunities.
(more…)

The UFC campaign was created using “Eyeblaster Workshop for Adobe Flash”

An Interview with Aaron Buchanan, Technical Director at RED

What is the culture like at Red? At RED, we’re constantly challenging ourselves to get the best concept and the most powerful execution. We put a lot of effort into getting our client’s message across – we apply storytelling and cinematic elements; we’ll try to create a feeling or an emotion, and it has to give the end user an interactive experience. We always try to reinvent our creative to meet the unique needs of each new project – and when the idea is hot, it’s worth that extra effort.

You just finished a large campaign for UFC, where you used Eyeblaster Workshop for Adobe Flash^TM. UFC is a great client of ours – they have an exciting brand and are always looking for something fresh. On this campaign, we delivered that by using AfterEffects to create video that we streamed into Flash. We used Eyeblaster Workshop to assemble our ads and bringing these two powerful tools together within a flexible platform. The workshop allows us to streamline the process of producing high‐end rich media units. By being able to control more of the details ourselves, we’r able to produce higher quality work in less time. Once we got our hands on the workshop, we knew that we’ be able to save a few days from our schedule. That’s a big deal, because what we do with that extra time improves the quality of our work. The UFC video executions went very smoothly -we were able to focus on the creative challenges and spend less time with production. It was a big value for us to be able just pick up a tool and work with it right away.

Why do you use Eyeblaster for your advanced rich media campaigns? We work on large‐scale campaigns, with a lot of moving parts, and occasionally very short timelines. Getting these campaigns up and running is mission critical, and we need to deliver on time. The Eyeblaster platform is a great tool that allows us to simplify campaigns with many contributing agencies, channels, regions, etc. Since we deliver almost all of our work via the Flash platform, having a tool based within the authoring environment allows us do develop, test, and publish units very quickly. We do our own QA ‐ so having the ability to preview sync ads, for instance, is huge. It’ our task to make sure things work. With Eyeblaster, we have everything we need at our fingertips. Eyeblaster services are among the best out there, and I know they’ll be there for us when we need them. They’re always introducing new products and features.

How do you keep yourself up to date? Technically speaking, I read blogs, books, and I love a well‐documented API. Creatively, I’m a big fan of looking at what’s around me in the offline world. I love going out to the movies, and watching the titles to see how the big budget studios create new stuff.

From the familiar environment of Flash, you can now build, preview, share and upload ads while seamlessly collaborating with any number of team members or freelancers. There’s no coding, no fretting over technicalities, no guesswork. It works the way you work. With Eyeblaster Workshop v2.0, you can create it, see it and share it, all with a few clicks of the mouse.

We’re engaging with our clients to test new developments and influence the Eyeblaster Workshop roadmap. I recently spoke with Elliot Owen, a London based designer at Mediacom, who put the new Eyeblaster Workshop v2.0 through a rigorous beta test.

How often did you use the Workshop?

Every ad I build, I use it – so in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been using it all day. I’ve got a big campaign coming up, so there are 15, 20 different ads. Working on them all using the Eyeblaster Workshop.

Did you find that it saved you time?

Having the EBA files and recent projects listed, and being able to open files with one click is a big time saver. Previewing sync ads is certainly helpful and a timesaver.

What types of ads did you use the Workshop for?

The campaign I’m working on right now includes quite a variety of formats. Skyscrapers, leaderboards, banners and MPUs for MSN. It’s very heavy on video. There’s also one mini-game. Quite a few of those are synchronized, home page takeovers, things like that. I used Workshop for all of it.

Did you find the advanced video features helpful?

Absolutely. Some of these ads have multiple videos, so being able to add the assets in and having the numbers link up – and being able to test everything on my machine is much faster. So I can load videos and add videos to the ad unit simultaneously – with multiple video loader components.

Was the ability to share within the team and send previews to the client something that you used?

We have sent previews to the client, and I generally will send the link that Workshop generates to my project client. Those URLs are very useful to send to the client. If I build an ad and pass it to someone else, I will compile and bundle within Workshop and pass it over.

And how about uploading and source file bundling?

I bundle and upload ads directly from Flash, and it saves a lot of time. It does quick error-checking and makes sure you have all the components – the backup GIF in there, etc. And to sign-in and upload from the machine is very helpful.

Any other thoughts?

It’s certainly been very helpful, and managing the larger campaign has been useful as well, as far as organizing the different ads and different files. When you make an ad, you have the folder there, and it puts the Flash files into the folder – it saves time and keeps things organized. If you don’t have that, it’s easy for things to get confused, and for files to end up in different places. It’s quite a big time-saver.

For more info on Eyeblaster Workshop 2.0, visit http://www.eyeblaster.com/products/workshopforflash.asp .

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Gefen Lamdan, Sr. Product Planning Manager | Creative Eyeblaster