3 Questions with Jivox's Diaz Nesamoney

Kristina: How is growth in Real Time Bidding (RTB) affecting ad networks and publishers?

Diaz Nesamoney, CEO, Jivox: RTB places an increased emphasis on buying commodity inventory at scale and "market" prices. This means publishers must now differentiate between their premium and non-premium (commodity) ad inventory. Meanwhile, RTB puts pressure on ad networks to provide more value. Compared to RTB, the direct sales approach of ad networks has its benefits in that media planners and buyers can have a deeper dialogue with ad network sales teams to understand how to match campaign goals with available inventory. Ad network sales will have to be sophisticated media consultants who can offer insights on topics like demographics, targeting, analytics, sophisticated ad products and technologies.

Kristina: In 2012, what trend had the most impact in the rich media advertising industry?

Diaz: Many elements impacted the rich media ad industry in 2012, but I would say the top two include:
1) Rich media ads went multi-screen. Adobe systems issued a recent report stating 20 percent of Web page visits are now from smartphones and tablets. Many sites are already reporting as much as 30-40 percent of traffic from mobile devices. Unfortunately most rich media ads today are based on Flash and don't render on these devices. This means ad impressions are wasted and don't deliver the kind of engagement promised by rich media ads.
2) IAB Rising Stars ad formats became industry standards. The IAB's standardizing of several large format display ad units has received great traction amongst agencies and brands, who are eager to create premium ad experiences.

Kristina: How do you see the rich media advertising industry changing within the next year?

Diaz: Video and mobile are becoming two powerful forces in the rich media world. We now have rich media features in video ads (interactive pre-roll video) and video content in banner units. The next step is for rich media banners to work on mobile devices. To address this, a whole new set of mobile rich media ad formats have been created and are gaining market adoption.
All of this represents the re-birth of rich media as powerful brand building tools for digital media.

More from Diaz and Jivox on Monday, including his thoughts on how native advertising will impact 2013.

Tags: advertising trends, Jivox, online advertising, RTB advertising, RTB trends