• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer, October 14, 2016

Digital publishing platform Flipboard is keeping pace with the frenetic world of social media with the launch of Storyboard, a new advertising product that emphasizes flexibility in combining multiple ad formats.

Storyboard is also available to publishers for multimedia editorial content. It allows brands to deliver messages combining articles, images, gifs, video and audio, to form engaging multimedia narratives.

Storyboard helps advertisers compose the narratives with algorithms that gather their existing branded content from across the Web, allowing them to craft Storyboard messages without the need to create new content.

Users can browse the selection of ads and branded content, following an unfolding narrative, by swiping through the full-bleed Storyboard carousel. Like Flipboard’s platform for editorial content, the ads are optimized for consumption on mobile devices including both smartphones and tablets.

The new ad offering debuts with cosmetics retail brand Sephora as a launch partner. It is targeting readers of beauty-related content with a new holiday campaign, carrying the tagline: “Tis the Season, Love is the Reason, Let’s Beauty Together.”

Flipboard has been introducing new ad offerings at a steady clip. Earlier this year, it began making its ad inventory available for real-time buying through an invitation-only private marketplace. Flipboard selected Rubicon Project to automate the buying of its mobile ad inventory, making Flipboard’s audience available programmatically.

Also this year, Flipboard introduce its first vertical video ads, revamping its Cinema Loop ads to allow advertisers to show teasers in vertical format, which link to the horizontal versions of the ads.