The New Viewing Experience: The Second-Screen Revolution - Guest Post by David Jones, Shazam

The birth of TV over 50 years ago forever transformed the way people view the world.

Now, another major change is occurring: the transition from passive to interactive television viewing.

The technologies behind the internet, mobile devices and television are converging to form a new and more engaging viewing experience, and consumer electronics manufacturers, technology providers, advertisers and broadcasters alike are fighting for their piece of the pie in the new digital landscape.

Key to this vision of the future of TV is handing control of the viewing experience back to the consumer and allowing them to engage with content on their own terms. What was once considered a passive activity has evolved to become an interactive experience, with mobile devices – the “second screen” – driving this trend and acting as a companion to our television viewing. 

Video: Ad Innovation at Scale

What does it mean to be the world's leading software-as-a-service ad platform?

Check out this 90 second video, and find out how Flite empowers ad innovation at scale.

Don’t Tell Me You Don’t Have Enough Content

This dog needs more content.

At Flite we believe that content-rich ads have value.

Value for audiences because they entertain and inform. Value for advertisers because they get results. And value for publishers because doing the above provides an opportunity to grow ad revenue.

Yet a common complaint I hear from publishers is that their advertisers don’t have enough content for content-rich ads – that it’s hard to get extra brand assets.

Brands DO want to tell a more sophisticated story on top publisher sites. They believe in content marketing.

But their ad campaigns are planned around the remnant inventory bought through exchanges. They’re armed to the teeth with swfs. They claim they don’t have extra videos or piles of branded images lying around for a photo gallery.

Or maybe there are brand assets out there, but they’re not approved.

So somehow, we’re surprisingly light on content for ads.

But we’re looking in all the wrong places.

Webinar: Commerce-Enabling Your Rich Media Ads

Want to learn how to capture impulse purchases and measure the ROI of your online ad campaigns?

Then join our webinar on January 22nd at 11:00am PT to learn how to easily commerce-enable your rich media ads.  We're co-hosting it with our partner Channel Intelligence (CI), the global leader in Where-to-Buy services.

Example Ad: Omega Ladymatic by Condé Nast

We're seeing a lot of great ad design from our customers, and wanted to share one of our favroite interactive ads of the moment.

This 980x67 banner is a Pushdown unit that expands to 980x420. The full-width ad is too wide for proper viewing on the blog, but you can play around with it on it's own page.

Built in Flite Ad Studio, the ad for Omega Presents: Ladymatic begins as a collapsed banner that expands to reveal an elegant gallery that echos the grace of the products being showcased. It ran on Vanity Fair, W, and Style.

Ad Studio now offers fully-functional starter ads for all six IAB Rising Star formats, including the Pushdown like this one. Experience these innovative formats on our interactive IAB Rising Star demo page.

 

The Irony of Digital Publishing in Newspapers -- guest post by David Rozzi, The New York Post

Flite's Guest Blogger series features the industry's top thought-leaders to share insights on display advertising, agile marketing, and innovation.

David Rozzi is the Director of Digital Projects at The New York Post.

---

With the advent of the iPad and the myriad new tablet devices that have come onto the market, publishers have flocked to the tablet platform. 

They see tablets as a golden opportunity, an exploding new space to increase the footprint of their brands to both current and new readers. 

From a content perspective, tablets allow publishers to provide relevance in new ways, through slideshows and video galleries, interactive graphs and photos, pop ups and hotspots, etc. From an advertising perspective, tablets provide advertisers with more attractive animated ads, the ability to collect metrics, and interact with customers via surveys, links, and shopper units.

Publishers are taking full advantage of marketing apps to attract new readers and the features of digital advertising.

Case Study: Forbes

When Forbes sought to reinvigorate their digital advertising business, they turned to the Flite Platform to improve build speed and create cost savings.

Read the full case study about how Forbes leveraged Flite to build and sell competitive ad products with an in-house team.