Pre- and midrolls ad format specifications
The Videoplaza pre- and midrolls are both the same ad format. The ad format has many rich interactive opportunities you may explore when crafting the actual creative’s. Check out the showroom for inspiration.
The ad format are however also to be considered backward compatible which means that the minimum required assets to get the campaign up and running are the same as for regular pre- and midrolls: A flv video file encoded in a high bandwith version as well as a low bandwidth version.
Specifications of minimum required assets:
- Video spot, 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratio, 505 pixels wide. FLV (Flash video) encoded in a high bandwidth version (700 kbps) and a low bandwidth version (400 kbps)
- Landing page URL
Optional further exploration of ‘curtain fold’
The Videoplaza interactive ad format differs from regular pre- and midrolls by staying present in the video player after the initial impression has been made. The ad format act as a roll-up curtain, leaving what we call a ‘curtain fold’ behind in the top of the video player.
Please see the demo to try the format in action.
The user can interact with the curtain fold, and if the user decides to click it, the ad will open up again. If you do not provide a curtain fold, a default one will be used.
Your options to customize the curtain fold is either to provide your own text that should be displayed within the default curtain fold, or to craft your own curtain fold which is a regular Flash swf file.
Specifications of Videoplaza curtain fold:
- Either a line of text (max 20 characters) to be displayed in the default curtain fold
- or a customized curtain fold swf file of dimensions 505×40px
If there are multiple pre- or midrolls active in the same user session, the user will have the ability to browse through the available ads. This is done via controls that Videoplaza inserts on the edges of the curtain fold.
In order to secure best end user experience, you should keep 15 pixels on every side of the curtain fold free from text or other content details since it may otherwise be overlapped by our controls.
You’re not required to have any Actionscript within your curtain fold, but you are allowed to if you want to. Please check the Actionscript 101 on what you may, and may not, do with Actionscript within your customized swf.
Optional further exploration of interactive features
Besides the option of customizing the curtain fold, the Videoplaza pre- and mid roll ad format also provides other more exiting opportunities to explore in your creative process.
The ad format has full support of having two different messages before and after user interaction.
You may for instance have a 10 second trailer with a cliffhanger before the user interaction, and if the user opts in for more information (clicks the curtain fold), you can then expand your message to be a full 3-4 minutes trailer.
You may also provide interactive swf files instead if a video file, or you can have both. In other words, you can have a regular 10 second preroll before the user interaction, but if the user chooses to open the ad up again, you can let the 10 second trailer be repeated and have it land into a swf file with an order form.
The pre- and midroll format is divided up in two steps. When the ad is first shown (pushed to the user) it shows the first step. When the user clicks the ad to open it up again, the second step is shown. The second step is completely optional, if it’s missing, the first step will be repeated if the user opens the ad again.
The steps, are in turn divided into events. All events are optional. If an event is missing, the ad format will just skip that event.
The diagram below describes the different steps and events available within the ad format.
The interactive pre- and midroll ad format consists of two steps. The first step is shown to the user before interaction, while the second (optional) step is shown after interaction (if the user clicks the curtain fold). If step 2 is missing, step 1 will be repeated.
The steps are in turn separated into events. A missing event will be left out, so in effect, all events are optional as long as at least one exist. By this structure the ad fromat is a very flexible ad format that can adapt to almost all your creative ideas.
About the events
A FLV event is basically just a video that will play for it’s entire duration. The SWF events on the other hand are more flexible. Here you can have a custom SWF in which you can have any kind of interactive content that you want.
You can choose the duration of your SWF events and the pre- or midroll will continue with the next event when the time has passed. In step 1, the ad will close itself automatically, resuming the content when the last event has completed.
In step 2, which is shown when the user has clicked to open the ad up again, the ad will however stay open until the user actively closes the ad again. In other words, the last SWF event of step 2 is a good place to have an order form or any other kind of interactive SWF expecting user interaction.
Please read the Actionscript 101 for more info on what you may and may not do within Actionscript.