• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, June 18, 2013

With the help of the broader ad industry, Microsoft this week is rolling out a mobile ad format tailor-made for the Windows 8 operating system.

Dubbed Ad Pano, the app-friendly ad format was developed in partnership with a crowd of brands and agencies, including BMB, Razorfish, Rooster Worldwide, UM, and VML, All Saints clothing, Mercedes-Benz USA, Vans Shoes, MasterCard and Dell.

“Ad Pano … was born from the original co-ideation sessions with partners last year,” Jenn Creegan, general manager for display advertising experiences at Microsoft Advertising, said of the company’s collaborative approach.

To get marketers’ attention, Microsoft ad executives are describing Ad Pano as comparable to a magazine foldout. In one ad that UM created for MasterCard and Bing Travel, Microsoft Advertising developed a Windows 8 in app designed to encourage consumers to “tap into” the Priceless Web site using their mobile devices.

 “Through the multitouch ad unit, users can choose their customized Priceless Cities experience -- before a full screen takeover allows for further exploration into their personal offers,” according to Stephen Kim, vice president of global accounts and agencies and Yarn at Microsoft Advertising.

Ad Pano also offers an optional active anchor ad experience, which takes the forms of a series of 15 images that can stimulate video, similar to a flip-book.

How large a market can brands hope to reach by customizing their ads for Windows 8? Creegan said on Tuesday that over 100 million licenses for Microsoft’s latest operating system have been sold across a variety of form factors.

As for their effectiveness, nearly 60% of consumers exposed to ads on Windows 8 perceived the featured brands as “innovative cutting edge and trustworthy,” according to research conducted by Nielsen on Microsoft’s behalf.

What’s more, 61% of surveyed consumers referenced the ads as non-intrusive, and 67% agree that they were “intuitive,” Nielsen found.