• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 10, 2010

In an ambitious move to improve both its user experience and the effectiveness of its display advertising for advertisers, News Corp.'s IGN Entertainment unit has overhauled all of the advertising units on its home page and vertical channel pages, eliminating the traditional combination of lederboards and half-page units, and replacing them with dynamic units featuring "pushdown functionality," "unified skins," and an "HD-like view" that traverses the width of each page.

The new units debut with a campaign by Square Enix, the videogames publisher behind the "Final Fantasy" series, which will be the exclusive sponsor of a "roadblock" re-launch of the IGN pages. Square Enix will use the buy for a campaign promoting "Final Fantasy XIII," which launched Tuesday.

As part of its deal, Square Enix will be the first advertiser to run a campaign across the entire IGN Entertainment network, including flagship gaming information site IGN.com, as well as men's lifestyle site AskMen.com.