• by Masha Geller , September 4, 2003

A couple of fun things to report on today. First, if you haven't already, go to the MSN homepage and check out the new Ford ad. Part of the automaker's $200 million push for the F-150 pickup, Ford is taking over the front pages of MSN, Yahoo and AOL, but only the MSN takeover ad was cool enough for this cynic to replay it.

Second, and somewhat related, EyeWonder and FPBA Group, developer of CommFlash (the in-browser interstitial ad-delivery technology), today announced that they'll be joint marketing a new CommFlash EYERIS G3 full page audio and video solution. Much like television viewing, periods of content will be interspersed with short commercial breaks, enabling advertisers to display their ads without having to resort to pop-up or floating windows.

Basically, while a user views a web page, CommFlash and EYERIS download the video ad-file in the background. When the user requests the next page, the video clip is immediately launched and played in the same browser window while, at the same time, the next page is downloaded in the background. After the ad plays through, it is automatically removed and the next requested page is displayed. The video ads can also be launched in the Intromercial (or prestitial) format upon entrance to a web page.

I'm still not sure I like the concept of full-page interstitials (or, more to the point, the idea of having the web imitate TV), but I'm warming up to it as online creative gets better and better, so check out the demos of the Entry and the Exit interstitial (click on a link once the page has loaded.) And just to clarify, the Yahoo page is for demonstration purposes only, as the site has not yet signed up to try the new format, but a large number of publishers are already CommFlash-enabled.