• by March 15, 2011

As a precursor to launching the first open app store for creators of online ads, ad services company Adventive has signed the digital divisions of several publishers as initial users of Ad Accelerator, a tool that allows ad designers to easily drag and drop a wide range of consumer or business apps directly into display banners. The publishers include Forbes, The New York Times Co. (The New York Times, Boston Globe), Meredith Publications (Better Homes & Gardens, Family Circle) Hachette Filipacchi's Elle, and Giant magazine.

Ad Accelerator's app categories include ecommerce and data capture -- especially useful for consumers who subscribe to publishers' print products -- as well as maps, social media sharing, geolocation, data capture, video, real-time content feeds, and video.

Rather than sending users to landing pages to fill out forms, complete transactions and other activities, Ad Accelerator's apps allow advertisers to take care of such interactions right in the ad itself without leaving the publisher's page. In addition to ad creation, Ad Accelerator's end-to-end platform includes ad-serving, campaign management and reporting.

Preparing to take Ad Accelerator out of beta in the third quarter, Adventive also promoted two top executives: Chris Boucher, formerly VP-product, was named CEO and president -- a new position -- while former CEO and chairman David Koretz takes on the new post of executive chairman. Koretz is also president and CEO of BlueTie, a provider of cloud-based business apps, while Boucher had worked at Publicis Groupe's Starcom, Home Technology Network and Reed Business Information before joining Adventive in 2009.

"We have seen a lot of initial traction with publishers, because they have been at the mercy of overpriced rich media vendors for years," Koretz told MediaPost. "We reached out to them initially to certify our platform, and they got excited enough by it that they ended up signing up as customers. The reason we are seeing so much traction on ROI-centric campaigns is that rich media has previously been too expensive to use in this way."

In addition to the publishers, other advertisers running Adventive-apped ads during its beta period, which started in mid-2010, have included AccountNow, Crush, Carbonite and Ventura Automotive.

Koretz said that Adventive's upcoming app store will enable publishers to build custom proprietary apps, and that the company will invite third-party developers to make their apps available -- Apple-style -- in the store.