• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 24, 2011

Google laid out "three laws of display advertising physics" -- a play on the theory of relativity, fusion and perpetual motion -- to help advertisers understand upcoming changes. The concept fits into events shaking out in the advertising industry as display ads continue to evolve, and as they become more creative and cost-effective and easier to deploy for both online and mobile devices. Each lengthy and detailed method offers similar ways to achieve advertising and marketing goals, depending on how the agency or brand manages the campaign.

Marketers that rethink how they connect with people will drive the most effective campaigns in this new era, according to Neal Mohan, vice president of product management at Google. "Whether it means partnering with technology providers to buy better, or exploring the infinite possibilities of today's creative units, embracing new media and technology provides a key way for marketers to differentiate and grow their businesses in a new universe," he wrote.

Google's post exemplifies major changes occurring across the display ad space. Mixpo Thursday unveiled a dynamic video expandable ad unit enabling marketers to create targeted, online campaigns without the cost, time or resource barriers of traditional rich media.

Anupam Gupta, Mixpo president and CEO, calls the feature "canvas." He explains that it allows creative ad departments to bring into the ad additional content such as video content, widgets or social media tools, without code or altering the unit. The feature, built into the company's dynamic video technology, aims to reduce production time and eliminate costs and barriers, while increasing the creative aspect of the expandable ad unit.

The ad units, built on Mixpo's Dynamic Video Advertising platform, integrate dynamically customize messages based on a variety of criteria, including audience preferences, location-based services, message sequence, and time and day of the week. It lets advertisers produce and instantly update their campaigns without programming or retrafficking.

In the Creative Zone at MediaMind, agencies and brands can find and download prepackaged Flash-based working codes, also known as Blocks, that other agencies or creative departments developed and agreed to share on the site. The MediaMind Blocks allows creative departments to develop a feature for a client, turn it into a snippet of code and submit it to MediaMind to share.

MediaMind Blocks -- prepackaged Flash-based downloadable working codes -- give agencies custom Flash files, templates, help documents, and code to build features like augmented reality, Twitter streams, Papervision3D or physics simulation into rich media ads. The codes provide an instant creative inspiration or a quick fix for marketers in need of adding a specific functionality within the ad unit.

The site's future could offer a method for the more than 6,000 agencies worldwide that MediaMind works with to monetize code development work. For now, the Blocks are free to those working with MediaMind, according to Dean Donaldson, global director of media innovation. "We've partnered with technology companies and agencies to co-develop code that other agencies can use," he says. "It also creates a marketplace to improve the overall quality of advertising by simplifying the process of companies getting access to advanced techniques."

Don't think of the Creative Zone as a collaboration platform for competitors, Donaldson says. "We see this as the creative forum sharing ideas to enrich the overall advertising space, while offering a platform for technology partners to inspire and push the limits in innovations in rich media ads."