• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, September 23, 2010

Medialets, the company that introduced the shakeable ad for Dockers last year, today rolls out its latest mobile format: a new type of expandable ad that can unfurl gradually in any direction instead of all at once.

The in-app "Adaptable" unit, designed for Apple iOS devices but geared especially to the iPad, is aimed at giving marketers more control of where dynamic ad creative displays on the screen.

One set of demo images of a generic Adaptable ad shows a banner ad for a car at the bottom of the screen. When clicked on, the car drives out of the banner and up to the top of the screen, with the creative appearing at the top as well as the bottom of the screen.

So the ad can take any shape or form across the screen. "And because Medialets Adaptables support transparency, as our other ad formats do, the creative possibilities are not limited to standard shapes," states a company blog post announcing the new unit.

Among other features, the HTML5-based Adaptable allows for a variety of interactions including pinching and swiping images as well as tilting, and of course, shaking. The unit also allows users to click through to a landing page without leaving the app they are in.

Medialets said the Adaptable banners are available with its Universal SDK for iOS 2.4, released this week. With the latest version of its developer kit, existing Medialets banner slots are automatically updated to support the new format.

Medialets said there has been "tons of interest" in the Adaptable ad but did not name any advertisers committed to use the format at launch. The company, whose rich media ad units for the iPhone and other devices compete with Apple's iAd, last month raised $6 million in a second-round financing from investors including The Foundry Group and DFJ Gotham.

Medialets' ad technology business has benefited from the proliferation of smartphones and the growing use of mobile apps. A recent Pew Internet Project found that 29% of U.S. adults have downloaded a mobile app and smartphone penetration is estimated at roughly 20%, according to technology research firm IDC.