The rise of interactivity in video advertising: Vpaid & VAST

Video advertising is a diverse and expanding area in online marketing. There are a lot of different video ad formats with continuously increasing capabilities.
In order to create compatibility between these different video formats and video players, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has created some standards that facilitate the process.
It is essential being familiar with these standards like VAST and VPAID, to fully understand all possibilities in video marketing.

VAST or “Video Ad Serving Template”

As its name says, VAST is a standardized video ad template that allow advertisers to no longer worry about their video ads failing to run on certain video players.
This template tells the video player:

Which ad to play and where to find it in the ad server
How long the video should last and whether it’s skippable
What the clickthrough URL should be

In other words, it creates a framework that enables the video player and ad server to speak the same language. This standardization increases the volumes for both publishers and advertisers. Advertisers don’t need to worry if their video will run on the different video players of the publishers. This naturally results in an increase of demand for the publishers video advertising space.

VPAID or “Video Player Ad-Serving Interface Definition”

VPAID ads are able to offer interactivity in a way that VAST alone can’t. VPAID ads are a specialized type of media file that can be delivered in a VAST template. It includes a snippet of code that can be run in video players and
therefore offers functionalities that are not automatically present in a VAST tag.
VPAID offers not only a richer ad experience to viewers, but enables marketeers as well to track ad engagement and interaction. A simple example of the interactivity could be an overlay that appears on a certain moment in the video on which a user can click to be redirected to more detailed content.
Nowadays most digital placements are using VPAID, which not only increases interactivity and quality of the ads, but also allows measuring and analysing performances.

Summary

Video marketing is being facilitated by these standards but also sees its capabilities increasing. It allows publishers to accept a broader range of video ads, while advertisers see more possibilities in richer ad experiences and measurement.
Publishers supporting VPAID ads enable advertisers to provide a premium, interactive experience and can expect premium compensation in return, which then again allows them to create or offer more qualitative content.
Advertisers being familiar with VPAID and VAST know what video ads can do and where they could be placed in the most interactive way in order to analyse and optimise performances for maximum results.

AUTHOR

Yves Wouters

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