5 New Video Ad Formats Selected by IAB Hope to Get You Watching and Clicking

The Interactive Advertising Bureau has selected five ad video formats from its "Rising Stars" program that they hope will become standard fare in the future.  What these five video ad formats have in common is an interactivity that will allow the viewer to get to know more about the product, whether it's to see a longer version of the ad, or the ability to find where that product is sold near you, or to see descriptions of the product being used.  All of these improvements will seek to make ads better.  But the real question is, will they make people watch?

IAB's 5 Winning Rising Stars

Here's a video of the 5 winning ad formats selected by the Interactive Advertising Bureau:

Let's them down:

• Filmstrip: Lets you cut from the video to a series of windows where you can find locations, reviews, and more information in an interactive, sliding, "filmstrip."
• Ad Control Bar: Has a display just above the player controls with easy buttons to share the video, find dealers, more information, photos, etc.
• Time Sync: Video with rich ad overlays that change as the video progresses, featuring products that happen to be in the video at the time.  You can click on the ad and learn more about stuff in which you're interested.
• Extender: Simply gives you the option to watch a longer version of the ad with a simple call-to-action.
• Full Screen: Much like Filmstrip, this interactive ad allows you to fill the screen with options, like sharing, finding out more information about the product, and so on.

This Ad Age article on the topic alludes to the fact that the new ad formats will supposedly be better for people who actually want to watch ads, but it does not mean that people will be more willing to sit through pre-rolls.  I'm not sure there's a real answer for that anyway: the best way to get people to watch an ad is to create great content and get their attention, quickly, within 5 seconds especially in a skippable ad.  But, aside from the problem of actually getting people to want to sit through a pre-roll, adding interactivity that makes the ads more enjoyable can't hurt.

Ads are about to get even more sophisticated and interactive.  What do you think about these new formats?