• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 3, 2011

Volvo plans to become one of the first brands to launch an online display ad campaign with an AdKeeper button. Clicking on the "K" in the ad will allow consumers to keep the ad for future viewing when convenient, as well as share with others through social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, or email.

The first ad should appear across the Web within the coming week.

The display ad unit will feature the 2011 Volvo S60, a sports sedan packed full of technology, such as a pedestrian detection and an automatic braking system. It detects when pedestrians appear in front of the car. If the driver doesn't react, the car brakes automatically.

Volvo will have an option to measure "keeps," follow-up visits and length of time spent with the ad, allowing the car manufacturer to measure the impact of the creative. All functions are tracked and reported back to advertisers, including metrics on where consumers went to first view and then keep the ad. Consumers can keep the ad indefinitely, as long as the advertiser doesn't have an expiration date.

"We're always looking for ways to improve brand consideration, and  much of that has to do with brand engagement," says Linda Gangeri, manager of national advertising at Volvo. "This idea of keeping ads should create more stickiness for the brand."

AdKeeper might not become a direct selling tool, but put the timing of viewing the ad in consumers' hands and Gangeri believes the technology could improve brand building, engagement and consideration for Volvo.

Volvo doesn't jump into technology for the sake of innovation, Gangeri says. "We look at every leading or bleeding edge opportunity to understand what consumers want online," she adds. "We'll watch, learn and optimize. If it works we'll continue; if not, we'll move on."

More than 50 major consumer brands have committed to run ads with AdKeeper's "kept" button, which the company officially launched in beta this week. Aside from Volvo, AdKeeper lists Alaska Airlines, Campbell's, Clorox, Kia Motors, Papa John's, The Home Depot, Universal Pictures, and Wendy's as other brands jumping on board.

AdKeeper Chief Revenue Officer MaryAnn Bekkedahl says when consumers click on the "k" button in the ad it gets copied into the person's keeper folder. A cookie is dropped into the browser, which lets AdKeeper track the consumer back to the ad at a later time.

Advertisers can embed the 'k," essentially JavaScript code, into the ad-serving unit as an overlay for a variety of formats, from rich media to Flash. If the ad can play in an iPad or mobile device, the technology works there, too.