Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Australia today released three draft video advertising standard guidelines and best practices for Australia for a two week industry review period. The guidelines, which include VAST and VPAID, have been developed by the IAB’s Standards and Guidelines Council (S&GC) and they seek to simplify the digital video advertising planning, buying and selling process for marketers, agencies and media companies.
Online video advertising is experiencing rapid growth in Australia, with the recent PwC Online Advertising Expenditure Report noted video based advertising in Australia grew 83 percent year-on-year and the proportion of online Australians consuming video content online increased from 50 percent in 2009 to 63 percent in 2010.
IAB is seeking comment and feedback from industry on the video advertising standard guidelines by 20th April 2011.
“The Standards and Guidelines Council of the IAB has worked extremely hard to develop guidelines that will ensure standardisation in the most common areas of the digital video landscape,” said Paul Fisher, CEO of IAB Australia. “Our objective with the release of these Guidelines is to support the continued explosive growth of online video advertising in a sustainable way and to encourage creativity and innovation in video advertising formats, while bringing our standards in line with international markets.”
The new guidelines reflect the most common in-stream ad formats known as linear video ads, non-linear video ads and companion ads. The guidelines include:
IAB Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) 2.0 Guidelines. This guideline outlines a standard XML based ad response for in-stream video as well as an XML schema definition (“XSD”) for developers. This standard for in-stream ad serving is a necessary precursor to the acceptance of third party serving by publishers. The adoption of the VAST standard is expected to bring immediate benefits to all parties in the video ecosystem
IAB Video Player Ad Interface Definition (VPAID) Guidelines. This document standardises the communication between video players and in-stream video advertising.
Online Video Advertising Guidelines. These guidelines and best practices are for the most common in-stream ad formats.
The online video advertising guidelines were developed based on input from the IAB Standards and Guidelines Council with representation across Publishers, the Media Federation of Australia, The Communications Council and Media Agencies; a review of the IAB USA Online Video Standards and Guidelines.
Organisations involved in the drafting of the UAP include Brandscreen, CBS Interactive, Fairfax Digital, First Digital Media, the Media Federation of Australia, Mediamind, MySpace, News Digital Media, ninemsn, Realestate.com.au, Sensis Digital Media, Network Ten, The Communications Council; and Yahoo!7.
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About the Interactive Advertising Bureau
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Limited is the peak trade association for online advertising in Australia. As one of over 32 IAB offices globally, and with a rapidly growing membership, IAB Australia’s principal objective is to increase the share of advertising and marketing dollars that interactive media captures in the marketplace.
Incorporated in July 2010 by nine founding members - Fairfax Digital, Fox Interactive Media, News Digital Media, ninemsn, REA Group, Ten, Yahoo!7, and Sensis Media Smart - together with the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA), the IAB has four objectives:
- To develop, coordinate and promote industry standards and guidelines that make interactive advertising a simpler and more attractive medium for agencies, advertisers and marketers
- To prove and promote the effectiveness of interactive advertising to advertisers, agencies, marketers, and the press
- To be the primary advocate for the interactive marketing and advertising industry
- To expand the breadth and depth of IAB membership while increasing direct value to members
For further information about IAB Australia please visit: www.iabaustralia.com.au