At DoubleClick, we've had the privilege of picking the brains of several of the industry's thought leaders and innovators in digital marketing. We've captured a few of these key insights through our ThreeQuestions for Innovators video interview series: These interviews span the gamut of key industry themes and issues, including current trends and influencers, ad exchanges, social media, emerging media, and the future.
This month we're honored to highlight interviews with Carla Hendra, Chief Executive Officer of Ogilvy North America, as well as Ian Schafer, CEO and Founder of interactive marketing agency Deep Focus. Carla speaks to us on the challenges in the brave world of digital marketing, while Ian shares his insights on rich media, video, and the role of the agency in the advertising process.
We're excited about our lineup of thought leaders and the conversations they spark - whether it's about opportunities in a challenging economic environment, trends to watch for in 2009 or ground-breaking insights from innovative fields such as neuromarketing.
Over the last several months, we've been working hard to develop a new tool for creative teams who build rich media ads and the media agencies and publishers they work with. The result of our efforts is DoubleClick Studio, a free rich media production and web-based workflow tool designed to streamline development processes for creative teams and to provide more control over turnaround times. We've designed DoubleClick Studio to significantly improve upon the existing Ad Kit, and pave the way for future innovation in rich media.
To learn more about DoubleClick Studio or to fill out a form showing your interest, please visit studio.doubleclick.com. As creative teams migrate to this new tool, users will also be able to log in here, download components for Flash, and access the web-based workflow.
Here are a few of the features we think creative teams will really like:
Improved workflow that gets preview links into client's hands faster
A fully searchable archive of work structured by clients, campaigns and creatives
Integrated QA processes that get errors identified and fixed earlier in the process
Full range of intuitive Flash components and full APIs in both AS2 and AS3
Direct upload to DART for Advertisers ensures smooth transition to traffickers for approved creatives
Testimonials
Josh Race of Ogilvy RedWorks, a member of the DoubleClick Studio beta program, has this to say: "DoubleClick Studio has a clean interface and you will never get lost trying to figure out where you are, which is uncommon amongst ad-serving tools. Our developers are all now self-sufficient and not depending on the one guy who knows his way around some wonky interface."
Will Campbell, also a beta member and owner of ARC Media Group, a creative agency based in Southern California, says, "DoubleClick Studio can greatly improve the workflow for any interactive studio working with Flash. From development to getting creatives ready for publishing it has increased our productivity and decreased the amount of steps we take to accomplish different tasks. It really shows that DoubleClick has given a lot of thought into not only increasing productivity on the development side, but also improving the workflow on the administrative side."
Benefits for Media Agencies
Although not direct users of the authoring tool, media agencies will also benefit from DoubleClick Studio and its integration with DART for Advertisers (DFA), enabling agencies to streamline the process for getting rich media campaigns approved and live. With DoubleClick Studio rolling out on a global basis, it is now easier than ever to manage local, regional and global campaigns on a single authoring platform. Here are some of the benefits:
Direct link between DoubleClick Studio and DART platforms for instant transfer of creative
Automated creative checks reduce approval time for campaigns to go live
Preview links include a view into all rich media events that can triggered by the ad for easy testing, review and sign-off
More Details
For a quick tour of DoubleClick Studio, take a look at this short video from Shamim Samadi, product manager for DoubleClick Rich Media.
For those of you who have used DoubleClick Rich Media tools in the past, we will continue to support the Ad Kit though we do not plan to make future upgrades. We also want to note that, while we intend for DoubleClick Studio to make rich media production more efficient for agencies, advertisers and publishers who would like to own the entire process themselves, we remain fully committed to the highest levels of customer service.
Today, the Online Publishers Association (OPA) announced that over two dozen members plan to introduce larger format ads on their sites by July 2009. They've proposed the following units:
The Fixed Panel (recommended dimension is 336 wide x 860 tall), which looks naturally embedded into the page layout and scrolls to the top and bottom of the page as a user scrolls.
The XXL Box (recommended dimension is 468 wide x 648 tall), which has page-turn functionality with video capability.
The Pushdown (recommended dimension is 970 wide x 418 tall), which opens to display the advertisement and then rolls up to the top of the page.
For publishers and agencies looking to get a head start, these units can be done with DoubleClick Rich Media today and are easily implemented in either the DART for Publishers or DART for Advertisers ad serving systems.
DoubleClick Rich Media has received an additional level of certification from Google for the expandable format. This extra level of certification is necessary because expanding ads on GCN need to intelligently expand in the correct direction depending on the placement of the ad slot on the page. For example, if the ad is displayed in a skyscraper on the right side of the page, the ad needs to "know" in real time to expand to the left.
Due to this special consideration during ad creation, DoubleClick clients that wish to run expandable ads on the GCN should be sure to loop their account manager and campaign manager in as early as possible. We look forward to helping you take advantage of this exciting new feature to make your campaigns more effective.
Think you have social media checked off on your marketing plan because you have a blog, podcast, vodcast and active forum? Think again. Now that you've hit your stride with social media, it's time to accelerate the conversation by drawing in new participants. We'd like to share three ways to use rich media ads to do this:
Plug Your Blog: Embed your blog feed into an ad unit. Include a call-to-action in the unit to subscribe to your RSS feed.
Add Media to the Ad: Advertise new podcasts or vodcasts as they become available. Include part or all of the podcast in the ad unit. Promote links to subscribe to your feeds in addition to offering individual download links.
Bring it All Together: Package all your social media channels -- blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, comments feeds -- into one comprehensive widget. Allow people to share it on their blog or social network of choice. Seed the widget by running it as a shareable ad on relevant paid media.
DoubleClick data shows a strong correlation between larger creative sizes and results, such as higher interaction rates and click-through rates. So, this large format unit by Las Vegas Convention & Visitor's Authority and R&R Partners is sure to please. You can view the impressive 976x250 creative in our gallery here, or by clicking the screenshot below.
This ad puts a Vegas vacation top of mind through a video contest for the YouTube community. The contest invites viewers to create a video about why they need a Vegas vacation. Viewers of the ad are directed to the contest homepage on YouTube or the landing page at VisitLasVegas.com.
Before the election, we hosted an informal web poll that asked our visitors the following question, "Which issue do you think the next U.S. president should make a primary focus during his or her first 100 days in office?" Visitors resoundingly voted for the issue of economy/recession. Here's how the 1760 responses broke out:
Economy/Recession 62.27%
Foreign Policy 11.59%
Environment 8.01%
Healthcare 7.50%
National Security 5.85%
Immigration 4.77%
If you're ready to get even more participatory, head over to The Davos Debates on YouTube where The World Economic Forum invites you to send in your solutions and suggestions for the key issues facing us today. The focus issues include the state of the economy, the environment, US politics and business ethics. The four questions up for public discussion through the YouTube platform are:
Are you confident that global growth will be restored in 2009?
Will the environment lose out to the economy in 2009?
Will the Obama administration improve the state of the world in 2009?
Should company executives have a code of ethics similar to doctors and lawyers?
The person who submits the best video will be invited, all expenses paid, to attend The World Economic Forum's upcoming Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters and interact with world leaders in person.
To learn more, watch the video about joining The Davos Debates:
