MediaMind was announced a winner at the IAB Leadership Summit for 2 Mobile Ad Formats and MediaMind star Gianluca Milano was given special recognition for his contributions to the IAB.   MediaMind also was chosen to partner with leading creative agencies to showcase 2 Rising Star Formats – the Slider and the Sidekick – featured below.



 Who inspires you?

Hands down, Steve Jobs.  When you’ve had the privilege of living in the same era as a man who was a pioneer in personal computing, and then through a series of innovative new products, has now lead us towards a post-PC era; it is truly remarkable.  Steve Jobs is a true visionary and he has changed the way we go about our daily lives.  Although Steve’s life was cut short due to pancreatic cancer, the same illness my father battled, his impact will be felt for generations to come.  Whenever Steve faced adversity, regardless of whether it was in his professional career or his personal heath struggles, he had an undeniable passion which inspired everyone around him.  I admire his personal courage and his relentless pursuit for perfection.


 What is your favorite brand campaign?

I’d have to say the Coca Cola polar bear campaign.  Given my background in 3D, I can appreciate the artistic approach and the level of effort that goes into producing these videos.  The polar bears have become an iconic representation for the Coca Cola brand.  From a brand recall standpoint, whenever I see the animated polar bears, it’s unmistakably a Coca Cola ad.  I could go for a coke right now, but I just gave up soda for Lent.


 What do you think is the biggest challenge facing digital advertising?

The biggest challenges facing digital advertising is the lack of standardization and the influx of new devices that are being brought to market.  From TVs, to PCs, to Smartphones and Tablets, advertisers want to reach and target their consumers across all platforms and devices.  Together with the IAB, MediaMind is committed to helping establish standards across multiple channels to push the advertising industry forward.  With the combination of DG and MediaMind, both dominant players in the TV broadcast and Online advertising space, respectively; I feel we are extremely well positioned in the market to effectively guide our customers through these challenges by offering the ability to manage, deliver and measure ads within a unified platform.


 What made you become so involved with the IAB Rising Stars program?

For the past several years at Unicast (now part of the MediaMind Global Publisher Unit), I created and ran a product development team primarily focused on innovating new ad formats and features.  This perfectly aligned with the IAB Rising Stars since a core component of the program is to reimagine interactive brand advertising by establishing innovative and scalable ad format standards.  Based on my experience, I’ve been very involved in helping to shape the creative specifications for all of the Display Rising Stars winners and to help drive adoption of these ad formats on a global scale.

IAB Demo Sidekick Developed by MediaMind with Big Spaceship

IAB Demo for the Slider Developed by MediaMind and BBH for AXE

The IAB Rising Star creative showcase is a great idea and I can’t wait to see all of the compelling, creative executions displayed onstage at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting.  Here at MediaMind, we partnered with several of the nation’s top creative agencies to develop showcase pieces demonstrating the creative potential for the Rising Stars Sidekick and Slider formats.  Peter Minnium, who spearheads the IAB Rising Stars programs, did a remarkable job in drawing top-notch talent from multiple creative agencies to participate in this initiative.  In addition to the Rising Stars creative showcase, we also partnered with the IAB and several creative agencies on a research study to measure the effectiveness of the Rising Stars formats.  I look forward to seeing the results that will also be unveiled at the IAB Leadership Meeting.


How did you get started in digital advertising?

I got started in the digital advertising space back in 2000, when I began working with Viewpoint, an interactive marketing technology company which specialized in creating 3D product presentations.  I worked with several fortune 500 companies to bring their product lines to life by developing photo-realistic, 3D representations of their products and creating interactive product demonstrations.  I served as a Senior Interactive Producer and managed teams of designers, 3D modelers, 3D animators and web developers to create these immersive and engaging experiences.  In 2005, I began working with Unicast and held several roles managing teams in Ad Operations, Product Development and Product Management.


How are you going to celebrate your IAB service excellence award?

I’m going to celebrate my IAB Service Excellence award with all of the hard working people I have the pleasure of working with on a daily basis; many of which played a part in creating the winning ad format concepts for the Sidekick and Slider.  I am honored to accept the award at this year’s IAB Annual Leadership Meeting in Miami Beach, and I look forward to connecting and celebrating with many of my peers in the industry.  And, of course, at some point I’ll have to open a nice bottle of champagne.

Online, larger ads that occupy a bigger portion of the screen and use high quality images and video can make a big impact on results. In fact, it’s the creative that drives performance. To track the most effective ad formats, MediaMind looked at engagement across 300,000 creatives from the MediaMind database. We based our results on Dwell, one of the most telling metrics for measuring the effectiveness of branding campaigns. Dwell Rate measures the proportion of impressions that were touched by the user’s mouse for more than one second. Average Dwell Duration measures the length of exposure.


The top 5 performing formats are:
• Sidekick (IAB Rising Star)
• Pushdown (IAB Rising Star)
• Homepage Takeover
• Messenger Ads
• Video Extender


Click here to download the full research and understand which formats can make a difference for your brand.

OMD Madrid was looking for a differentiating format with which to build brand awareness for automaker Renault. The agency wanted a format that offered multiple opportunities for interaction while giving users quick access to in-depth information.

OMD selected the new IAB Filmstrip interactive format for the Plan Vive Renault Campaign. The Filmstrip format consists of five interlocking 300×600 panels that reach a total dimension of 300×3000. The Filmstrip loads when the user visits the page and functions in the same way as a conventional 300×600. From the first panel, the user can interact in three different ways:

• Clicking the areas indicated at the lower or upper part of the panels.
• Scrolling the page so that the Filmstrip moves automatically from one panel to another.
• If the user has previously interacted with the ad, the Filmstrip automatically shows them the next frame in the sequence. 

The Filmstrip format, co-developed by Microsoft Advertising and MediaMind, is one of six innovative solutions designated as an IAB Rising Star format, an initiative to promote the development of a new generation of online advertising standards.
The interactive ad for Renault was managed by OMD and developed by the Orbital creative agency using MediaMind technology. As a new, large format with loads of content in a single unit, the Filmstrip format grabs the user’s attention, leading to excellent results.

Click here to download the full Renault Case Study.

MediaMind’s Monthly Newsletter – The Feed – paid tribute to the eye-catching campaign for Mazda that dissects the publisher page with fast-moving robotic arms. Click here to see the full newsletter.

	Mazda 2 Homepage Takeover with Synchronised Units Advertiser: Mazda Media Agency: Mindshare Interaction UK Creative Agency: JWT UK Format: Synchronized leaderboard, MPU, skins Vertical: Automotive Country: UK View demo The creative team at JWT put plenty of zoom-zoom into this smart homepage takeover in which robotic arms deftly deconstruct and reassemble the entire page to showcase the new Mazda2, itself newly reassembled with less weight and more zip. Developed with the brand’s fun-to-drive spirit in mind, the takeover was created to promote the model’s new slimmed-down design and slimmed-down pricing for the UK audience. Julian Poole – Senior Producer at JWT UK