Last month, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), in conjunction with its broadband committee, released creative guidelines for online broadband video commercials. Those advertisers who are members of the IAB, and who create work within the parameters of the voluntary guidelines, will receive a “compliance seal” from the organization.
Per the guidelines, a video ad should be no longer than 30 seconds if it screens prior to or within content; ads that run after content have no restrictions on length. The IAB also recommends that users have the ability to start/stop the video ads, as well as control volume at all times, and may also have pause, fast forward/rewind, and zoom buttons, depending on the nature of the ad’s content. “These are voluntary guidelines,” explains Greg Stuart, president/CEO of the IAB. “The creative guidelines are meant to set a floor, not a ceiling; they are meant to bring everyone up to a certain point, and hopefully not restrict creativity in any way.”
At the moment, notes Stuart, online video ads represent one of the smaller categories that the IAB deals with–about $200 million-plus is spent annually vs. the billion-dollar plus classified, search and graphical ad categories. However, the growth potential in online video “is a very big deal,” he says, particularly as home-based broadband access increases. Per a study released last month by New York-headquartered research firm eMarketer, online video ad spending will rise $640 million in 2007 vs. this year’s $225 million. In the same report, it was predicted that U.S. households with broadband access will double by 2008 to 69.4 million. “There are certainly advantages,” laughs Stuart of setting guidelines sooner rather than later. “I think [creating these guidelines] is a reflection of how important this area is to the future.”
The creative guidelines took about nine to 12 months to create, and involved marketers as well as interactive media agencies. Stuart notes that in terms of broadband in the coming year, the IAB will continue to look at various issues, including serving and tracking of video ads. As for the creative guidelines, “we’ll revisit them in a couple of years to see if they are still working, and see if we need to adjust them in some way.”
