IAB Releases Ad Unit Guidelines Update

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released the 2009 update to its ad unit guidelines today. For the first time, the IAB is bringing in creative agencies for input on ad unit recommendations. Historically, these have only come from media agencies and publishers.

"By bringing agencies into the process of developing standard ad units, we have taken a step towards improving the creative output and branding potential for interactive media," says Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. "Our next order of business is to drive towards adoption of revised standards that we believe will spur increased investment in interactive advertising—we’ve already proven that there is no medium more accountable—now we have to bring all of its capabilities together to tell great stories to consumers—that’s what advertising is all about."

"Being a part of this process gave voice to the creative challenges that agencies faced with the existing standards, ad units, and technologies, and I believe we’ve found a solid way forward in overcoming those challenges," said Jim Russell, Partner, EVP, Director of Digital Strategy, McKinney. "Our goal was to simplify the existing list and I think we’ve developed a long-term strategy for doing this on behalf of the industry."

The working group created by the combination of creative agencies, media agencies, and publishers is called the Reimagining Interactive Advertising Task Force. The group has updated the criteria for standard ad units. It did so by looking at industry-wide impression count reports, ad unit availability, agency-side effectiveness reviews, and creative preferences. Two recommendations they made are:

- In order to be considered a standard, an ad unit must be commonly bought and offered throughout the marketplace; only seven of the eighteen ad units currently on the list meet the new criteria.

- Ad units will not be removed from the standard list in 2009, but must meet the criteria by the end of 2010

The whole IAB Ad Unit Guidelines update can be found here. Next year, the Task Force will release the first list of ad units.

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Barnes & Noble Offering Free Wi-Fi

Barnes & Noble said today it would offer free wireless Internet access at all its bookstores nationwide.

Barnes & Noble has offered Wi-Fi access via AT&T since 2005, but that was a subscription-based service.  Customers shopping in the bookstore will now be able to preview over 700,000 eBook titles along with thousands of public domain titles available from Google, on their Wi-Fi enabled devices.  The company says its number of eBook titles is on track to reach the one million mark soon.

"Barnes & Noble pioneered the concept of retail stores as community centers," said Steve Riggio, CEO of Barnes & Noble, Inc. "By providing no-fee Wi-Fi access, we are not only meeting our customers' needs, but extending the sense of community that has always been in our stores."

Mr. Riggio added, "This is a natural progression of our digital strategy to provide customers with more choices in how, when and where they want to read."

As part of the Wi-Fi offering, customers will soon be able to opt-in to receive personalized messages from Barnes & Nobel such as coupons, alerts on an author book signings and details on where to find a new book release.

Last week Barnes & Noble announced the launch of its own ebookstore and its forthcoming Plastic Logic e-reader that will compete with Amazon and its Kindle