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Talk about synergy! We announce a new capability, Spotlight for Rich Media, our client pepperjam blog about it and the benefits it offers to their clients, and we blog about them blogging about us! It's the new economy!
Thanks for the mention Kat.
Posted by Ari Paparo on January 11, 2008
On January 23rd, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), along with the Media Ratings Council (MRC), will be hosting a webinar that will take you through the recently released Rich Media Measurement Guidelines. DoubleClick has been heavily involved in this project from its outset and are big supporters of the IAB and their leadership role on measurement. In the webinar, George Ivie of the IAB and MRC will present learnings on the point at which rich media advertising impressions should be counted. Attendance is free, simply register in advance here.
Webinar: IAB Rich Media Measurement Guidelines Webinar
Date: January 23rd, 2008
Time: 4:00 - 5:00 EST
This webinar is for anyone whose company hosts, sells or serves internet advertising and is especially relevant to clients of DoubleClick Rich Media, as our metrics our both IAB-compliant and MRC certified. In related new, read about our most recent accreditation.
Posted by Ari Paparo on January 10, 2008
Today I'm happy to announce the release of Spotlight for Rich Media, a powerful new report for DART for Advertiser (DFA) clients that allows you to correlate how specific creative elements inside your DoubleClick Rich Media ads (i.e. videos, games, exit links, etc.) turn into purchases or conversion on your Web site. The report helps you answer questions like:
- How do interactions directly tie to results?
- Are users who watch the complete video more likely to come to our site later?
- Which drives more conversions, the "buy now" or "learn more" links?
- Are expanding ads worth the extra expense and creative cost?
- Does a video play change user behavior?
Starcom USA is one of the first agencies to use this reporting feature. For more information, you can read about the insights Starcom gained or learn more on our Web site. Also, clickZ's Fred Aun has written a great article about the report.
Posted by Ari Paparo on January 7, 2008
Wait, wrong football! We're talking American football from the NFL, with in-stream video ads baked in courtesy of DoubleClick In-Stream. Check out NFL Video.
Posted by Ari Paparo on August 17, 2007
ClickZ is posting an interview with yours truly. I discuss mobile, rich media, video, widgets, a little bit of everything...
Posted by Ari Paparo on August 9, 2007
Another nice write up of our innovation lab, this time with a focus on how we support NBC .
Posted by Ari Paparo on August 8, 2007
Weather.com today launched their BrightCove and DoubleClick-powered Blue Box video player. We've been working with both Weather and BrightCove for some time so it's great to see a high profile launch with the whole family involved.
Read the Press Release.
Posted by Ari Paparo on August 7, 2007
AdWeek touts the new Teaser ad format as DoubleClick Making Banners Less Boring. I like the sound of that!
Posted by Ari Paparo on August 2, 2007
Sounds like it was a great panel this Tuesday with Chris Young moderating a group of industry heavy-weights on the role of video in the marketing mix. Web Strategy by Jeremiah has a comprehensive overview.
Posted by Ari Paparo on July 26, 2007
ClickZ is reporting that AMPP Media, a new cross-platform ad network is using Motif and DART for ad serving. Welcome aboard guys!
Posted by Ari Paparo on April 16, 2007
Not sure what this says, but it's probably good! Motif launches in Japan!
Posted by Ari Paparo on March 29, 2007
I just got back from the really excellent Video on the Net conference out in San Jose (click through to see my headshot!). It was a little intimidating to have a speaking slot between Jeff Jarvis and Jeremy Allaire but the forum was great and the organizers were very...organized.
My talk got picked up by Russell Shaw at ZDNet who unfortunately used the term "IPTV" (I prefer Internet TV or Broadband video) but otherwise got the gist of what I was talking about.
My presentation was titled "Primetime for In-Stream" and made the point that there are a number of challenges we need to overcome in order to move the business forward, including:
- Reliable metrics, including IAB-compliant impression counting
- Integration with the video ecosystem vendors, such as CDNs and content management systems
- Creative formats, like bugs, transitionals, and telescoping
Of course, we at DoubleClick already offer all of this through Motif for In-Stream. I'm not sure I got that point across strongly enough at the conference, as the one question from the audience was something along the lines of "wait, you *charge* for this?".
Posted by Ari Paparo on March 23, 2007
Nice followup article from MediaPost on the Yahoo-PointRoll debacle.
I stand behind my quote in the article:
We like to do business however the client wants to do business .
It's true and it's a good policy.
Posted by Ari Paparo on February 21, 2007
AdWeek says: Live Video Comes to Banners! The response from this announcement has been pretty overwhelming. Each client who reaches out has their own idea about how to use live streaming inside an ad -- from red carpet events to store openings.
Live, original programming is the next evolution in advertiser Web video, said Young, who was Klipmart's CEO. Until a year ago, over 90 percent of the video Klipmart ran in ad units was repurposed TV fare, he said, but that has begun to change as more advertisers shoot specifically for the Web and seek to create their own compelling content.
This is going to be fun!
Posted by Ari Paparo on February 20, 2007
 New Line utilizes Motif's innovation lab to come up with a totally new concept for a rich media ad -- live video streamed into the ad unit. The New York Times covered this in their Saturday business section.
Posted by Ari Paparo on February 12, 2007
Our friends at ShopLocal have put together a great page explaining the value of our jointly-developed local offers product, SmartMedia. Using SmartMedia you can have products from your local stores featured in a Motif expanding ad.
Here's the funny part. I only found this page because I saw a Motif expanding banner ad on imedia and clicked through to find more information! Rich media works!!!
Here's the ad:
Posted by Ari Paparo on February 7, 2007
We've been getting some good coverage of the Klipmart acquisition...
AdAge points out that DoubleClick is "aggressively seeking a larger share of the streaming-video market."
Our friends at ClickZ incorrectly point out that the deal "brings DoubleClick a step closer to legitimacy as an end-to-end solution for rich media advertising." Incorrect since DART Motif has been serving many of the largest ad agencies in the country for the past two years. Correct in spirit though, since the deal does round out the offering and take it to the next level
Finally, I was happily surprised when I logged in to the DoubleClick employee portal and was greeted by this cheerful animated GIF!
If anyone knows about animated GIFs, its DoubleClick.
Posted by Ari Paparo on June 30, 2006
Today we announced that DoubleClick has acquired Klipmart, the leading provider of video rich media services.
Read about it in the press release:
DOUBLECLICK ACQUIRES KLIPMART TO ACCELERATE INDUSTRY INNOVATION IN DIGITAL VIDEO AND EMERGING AD FORMATS.
Posted by Ari Paparo on June 28, 2006
Motif will be represented at the upcoming ClickZ Video Advertising event on June 16th at the Puck Building in New York. Ari Paparo (that's me) will be speaking on a panel about video metrics. Drop me a line if you plan on attending.
Posted by Ari Paparo on April 18, 2006
Christmas came early boys and girls. Time to open some presents!
In the interest of representing the cross-cultural constituency of Motif users, I have listed out the changes Chanukah-style, with 8 major advances. Hopefully they'll make your holiday season rich with media!
1. Firefox and Netscape 8 Support
Motif ads are now compatible with the vast majority of PC-based Internet traffic with Firefox and Netscape 8 support. This change effects all new ads trafficked in DART and doesn't require any changes on the design side. Even older ads can be made compatible by re-booking the MTFs in DART or changing some of the parameters in DART and clicking "Submit".
2. Flash 8 Support
The Ad Kit can now be installed in either the Flash MX or Flash 8 authoring environments.
3. New Design Templates
The Motif Design Templates have been given a significant upgrade, especially the expanding templates. The new expanding templates use a very simple but powerful set of functions to control expansion/collapse while keeping state variables and recording Motif events. Upgrading to these new templates is highly recommended.
4. Two-SWF Expanding Template
You asked for it, we built it. Many other rich media vendors create expanding ads using two SWFs which are later "stitched" together to create the illusion of expanding. Since Motif uses a single SWF for the entire ad, converting from another vendor's format has been difficult. Our new Expanding with Children template makes this conversion a snap. Just load in a collapsed.swf and an expanded.swf and all will be good.
5. Simplified Polite Download
Motif now supports a single function approach to politely loading child SWFs using the new politeMovie function. Simply call politeMovie with the SWF to be loaded and the target movie clip and the Motif technology will wait until the destination webpage has loaded before loading the file.
6. New Actions Menu in Flash
Some users found that the new Ad Kit didn't properly install the Motif ActionScript function list into Flash. The functions are now available and have been updated to include politeMovie.
7. New Ads in the Creative Gallery
 Some hot new ads in the Motif Creative Gallery including an awesome floating ad from EA (click the image).
8. Bug Fixes
As you all know, Motif is a bug-free product (cough!). Some of the product...challenges...that were fixed include:
- Better error messages when working with expanding ads
- Less flickering in Flash UI
- Longer filenames supported on Mac
- Much faster preview from Ad Kit
Posted by Ari Paparo on December 5, 2005
Judging from the contents of my email box, a good number of Flash designers have upgraded to Studio 8 (8-Ball). I haven't yet seen any ads created specifically for the new player, but the authoring advantages are significant so it makes sense to take the plunge.
As part of our partnership with Macromedia, we have been part of the 8-Ball beta and have had access to the technology for some time. However, we have not yet released a version of the Motif Ad Kit that is compatible with the new version. We are currently in QA with a compatible version and should be in beta by November. If you would like to be part of the beta, you can contact me.
Posted by Ari Paparo on October 6, 2005
The latest Macromedia Edge is out and there's a piece written by me describing the development of the Motif Ad Kit. Interesting stuff (if I do say so!) for those of you thinking about developing applications in Flash. To get to the article click link #6 on the right side of the page (too bad Flash sites can't be properly bookmarked!).
Posted by Ari Paparo on September 9, 2005
Gavin O'Malley pours on the Motif love in his Rich Media Insider column, Crazy Days of Summer. Of the new Motif Ad Kit he says:
DoubleClick's product, Motif Ad Kit 2.0, has all the makings of a classic: a dedicated Web site to streamline the authoring environment and make it easier to traffic ads and control work flows; a one-click "preview" mode so designers can get a live preview of rich media ads without leaving the Flash environment; ActionScript-free authoring, so designers don't have to write code for common functions; and a process that lets them create Motif ads in Flash with just a few clicks. I'm going to forward this to my mom!
Posted by Ari Paparo on August 9, 2005
iMedia Connection: DoubleClick Dart Motif New Version
We All Stream: DoubleClick Launches Motif 2.0
Posted by Ari Paparo on July 28, 2005
The first review is out, and it looks pretty good. MediaPost quotes Gary Stein from Jupiter:
This is a significant release because they've taken steps to integrate Flash into the application. The trafficking feature and preview button are clever.
I like it when my product is called clever.
Posted by Ari Paparo on July 27, 2005
Welcome!
OK, now that that's out of the way, let me tell you why we're here.
As you probably know by now, DART Motif is a rich media technology built by DoubleClick and Macromedia to integrate Flash-based rich media advertising into both the Flash authoring and DART ad serving environments. We built Motif because the alternative, non-integrated rich media, was causing enormous pain to everyone involved in the process. Media planners couldn't figure out which formats to buy. Traffickers couldn't make ads work. Designers couldn't bother learning arcane programming APIs. Publishers couldn't rely on the reporting metrics for billing and reconciliation.
Motif is changing all that.
That said, rich media is still pretty complicated and there's still plenty of room for improvement. The Motif Blog is the venue where product management will share its learnings about the product, best practices on both the trafficking and design sides, happenings in the rich media business, events, news, and really anything else we think is interesting.
As we continue building out the Motif product and services we want to build a dialog with those in the industry -- especially Flash designers -- to make sure that what we're doing makes sense. You can contact us at any time by using the Support Form and it will be read by product management. Really!
So let us know what you like and don't about the product, the website, the blog, the weather, etc. We're looking forward to hearing from you.
Posted by Ari Paparo on July 22, 2005
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