Rich Media Creative Guidelines

2008 Update

With the advent of new and improved advertising technologies, rich media has developed into a popular format for reaching and engaging consumers because the technologies allow the consumer to interact with the creative asset.  The IAB Ad Sizes Working Group has therefore updated the Rich Media Creative Guidelines, making them applicable to both “over-the-page” and “in-page” units that may have features such as peeling back, floating over the page, expanding or appearing between pages.

It is important to note that these guidelines are intended to provide the industry with a lowest common denominator for creative specifications. Compliance with these guidelines means that a publisher accepts these specs as a minimum and is entitled to keep specifications to these minimums, or exceed them, at their sole discretion. The guidelines are not meant to place a limit on what can be accepted, however, agencies and advertisers should work with their publisher partners to understand what each one is able to accept.

Rich Media is now defined as:  advertisements with which users can interact (as opposed to solely animation and excluding click-through functionality) in a web page format. These advertisements can be used either singularly or in combination with various technologies, including but not limited to sound, video, or Flash, and with programming languages such as Java, Javascript, and DHTML. These Guidelines cover standard Web applications including e-mail, static (e.g. html) and dynamic (e.g. asp) Web pages, and may appear in ad formats such as banners and buttons as well as transitionals and various over-the-page units such as floating ads, page take-overs, and tear-backs.  Rich Media also includes in-page and in-text digital video advertisements where the associated content is not streaming in a player environment.

“In-Stream Video Ads” now refer to advertisements relating to video player environments, and creative guidelines for those units that appear in conjunction with streaming content, can be found here: www.iab.net/dvˍguidelines

PLEASE NOTE: Not all publishers carry all formats.

Other Guidelines

• Creative format/type should be fully disclosed by the agency to the publisher.

Additional Considerations: CPU Usage
In contrast to file size, the complexity of drawings, gradients, slow moving animations and detailed moving elements can affect the number of calculations the CPU must make for each frame. Publishers may have, in addition to file weight guidelines, requirements for rich media advertisements that take CPU usage into account. The IAB Ad Sizes Working Group recommends a maximum of 18 frames per second.

Common High CPU Usage Factors:

• Frame Rate is over 18 frames per second; reducing the number to 18 does not degrade visual performance.
• Multiple animated sequences across many layers animating at the same time.
• Animated sequences set to be translucent and animating on top of an imported graphic (ex: jpeg, png, etc.).
• Action Script-generated events set to randomly generate (ex: fog and rain).
• Imported graphics scaled up over a long period of time.

The Guidelines:

*300x250 ads only need to expand to 500x250
**If Video is part of any other rich media units, polite download file weight should adhere to In-Page Video Limit of 1.2 MB.