• by Karl Greenberg , February 27, 2012

In the nick of time (given the explosion in mobile-device usage), the Interactive Advertising Bureau has formalized five new formats for mobile advertising. The IAB says the five winning formats come from some 36 companies including AOL, Google, Microsoft and Pointroll, which served up something like 60 concepts.

Over the next three to four months the bureau will release specifications based on the new mobile ad concepts, which are winners of the IAB's "Mobile Rising Stars" competition, and are intended to work on all mobile platforms.

The IAB says the formats are also supposed to allow ad buys at the same scale and scope as typical online display buys.

Here are the new (potential) mobile standards:

1. Filmstrip, which the IAB describes as a scrollable, film-strip style multipanel, horizontal or vertical unit.

2. Slider, an overlay unit that resides on the bottom of a page. It is meant to mirror touchscreen usage by prompting users to slide the entire page over, revealing a full brand experience. The idea here is that although the slider unit replaces content with a full-page brand experience, the user can slide it out of the way again at will.

3. Adhesion Banner, a banner ad that the IAB describes as “adhering” to its start position, when one rotates the device or re-orients the page.

4. Full Page, which accommodates both portrait and landscape orientation, with interactive functionality.

5. Push, a bottom or top banner that expands to full screen, like “Pushdown” units. The IAB says this allows for an immersive, in-page ad experience.

The winning companies -- AOL, BabyCenter, Crisp, Google, Jivox, Mediamind, Medialets, Microsoft, Pointroll, Time Inc., The Weather Channel, and Yahoo -- will collaborate with IAB, its Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, Agency Working Group, and mobile ad ops experts to build specifications.

Separately, the IAB has released six new Standard Ad Units (SUA) that, per Randall Rothenberg, IAB president and CEO, offer more space, greater functionality, and a broader range of user experiences.

To measure the new units’ ability to deliver at scale for brand advertisers, IAB partnered with a roster of interactive agencies to test campaigns from AT&T, Jeep and Westin Hotels & Resorts, leveraging all six Rising Stars units for each. The test creative, which was showcased on MSN.com, was built by AOL/Pictela, DoubleClick/Google, MediaMind and Microsoft Advertising.

“As marketers we are all going to be more efficient in maximizing our production resources by having more structure around rich digital advertising units,” said Christi Gettinger, senior director brand management, Westin Hotels & Resorts, in a statement. “To date, publishers have been fairly fragmented in their offerings to advertisers and this ultimately drives up production costs to effectively reach our target audience."