• by Tobi Elkin  @tobielkin, January 10, 2017

Spongecell, a provider of programmatic creative technology, on Tuesday announced the release of a new HTML5-based video format that’s designed to help advertisers work with personalized, data-driven interactive video on a cross-device basis. In launching the new format, Spongecell aims to segue from Flash to offer customers personalized video.

"HTML5 ads are leaner, run across all devices, and can easily be built with self-service tools. Flash ads, on the other hand, slow down page load times, can't run on tablet and mobile and require product knowledge of Flash to build them," Ben Kartzman, Spongecell CEO, told Real-Time Daily in an email.

Among the features of the new format:

--Data-driven video: The new video ad format allows advertisers to reach consumers with relevant messaging and video content informed by first- and third-party data, plus any turnkey data based on location, weather, date, and time of day.

--Shoppable product carousels: Advertisers can dynamically pull in their product catalogs to offer a range of product recommendations, including products trending in their markets or retarget consumers with previously viewed products.

--Visibility into ad interactions: In contrast to the VAST (Video Ad Serving Template)  in-stream ad format that runs cross-device, but only tracks click-throughs, HTML5 in-stream offers granular tracking of campaign success metrics including engagement rate, time spent, and interactions, according to the company.

--Self-service platform: Advertisers can build, target, and traffic their HTML5 in-stream units using Spongecell’s ad studio and decision engine.

Kartzman said 2016 was a “pivotal year” for the ad industry in terms of accepting programmatic creative technology to create personalized marketing. He said he expects that as video grows in overall digital ad market share including in the programmatic space, “brands are will increasingly demand the ability to reach the right consumer at the right time with the right message on a cross-device basis at scale.”