Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Advertising Formats
version 1.0
Released 19 July 2010
Prepared by the Mobile Advertising Committee of the Interactive Advertising Bureau
Introduction
Few new media platforms of the last five years have generated as much excitement as applications (“apps”) on mobile or
portable devices. Combining the portability and highly personal nature of a mobile device with a relatively large, full color,
high-resolution screen and immersive and intuitive user interfaces built on touch and gesture has created a unique environment
for media companies and marketers to reach consumers. Despite low market penetration relative to feature phones,
smartphones far outpace their less capable cousins when it comes to accessing mobile data services. And the proliferation of
apps on these devices, tailor-made to offer rich experiences despite the limitations of mobile data networks, is likely to drive
only more data usage over time.
App business models vary; however, many today (and particularly those from established media brands) are supported at
least partially by advertising. Marketers and agencies looking to add in-app advertising to campaigns enjoy a broad array of
potential partners. In many cases, they also must confront a significant diversity of devices, operating systems, and operator
networks, as well as a fast-evolving landscape of ad formats and capabilities. This document will provide a basic guide to the
ad formats offered on today’s most prominent mobile app platforms, although it will not address all of the challenges created
by that diversity.
Methodology
In order to provide some guidance to the market, the IAB fielded a simple survey to members who sell in-app ads, asking them
to summarize the ad formats they currently support, across seven different platforms for mobile/portable devices.
App Platforms Included
• Android • Palm
• Blackberry • Symbian
• iPad • Windows Mobile
• iPhone/iPod Touch
We received sufficient data to make some platform-specific observations for four of these platforms: Android, Blackberry, iPad,
and iPhone/iPod Touch. Fourteen IAB member companies, including branded publishers and advertising networks, responded
with ad formats they support:
Participating Publishers
• 4INFO • Millennial Media
• Associated Press • MyWebGrocer
• Cars.com • NBC Universal Digital Media
• CNN.com • Pandora
• Crain’s Chicago Business/ Chicagobusiness.com • Weather Channel Interactive
• ESPN.com • Weatherbug
• JumpTap • Wall Street Journal Digital
The data summarized here are not a scientific sample of formats offered across the entire industry, nor basis and do not
purport to be representative of the entire market. However, we believe that this document can serve as a benchmark,
highlighting points of emerging similarity among app providers (e.g., banner sizes on smartphones are already trending
toward general consistency) and points of significant difference (e.g., what constitutes a “full page” ad on an iPhone). We
conclude with some general best practices for marketers and agencies planning in-application ads as part of a campaign.
The rest of this report will review the key trends we observe in the current data, across all app platforms and then for the
individual platforms for which a sufficient number of participants provided responses. Our survey did not garner sufficient
data on Palm, Symbian, or Windows Mobile apps to discuss ad formats on those platforms separately; however the general
conclusions in the next section are applicable based on what little data we received on apps on those platforms.
40 px
10 px ]- 3 px
20px
RELATIVE SIZES OF 300X50, 320X50, 320X53, AND 320X40 RECTANGLES
1 The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has published creative guidelines for mobile Web ads since 2003. Due to differences in feature phone
screen resolutions, The MMA has focused on aspect ratios as the heart of its banner guidelines, establishing 8 banner sizes using variations on 6:1 and 4:1 ratios.
The idea is that a publisher supporting, say, 6:1 banners would expect 4 sizes of creative from an agency (the sizes specified by the guidelines), from which it
would automatically serve as appropriate to the size of the cellphone screen being used to browse the content. See: http://mmaglobal.com/mobileadvertising.
pdf.
2 The new iPhone 4 model substantially increases screen resolution, to 960x640.
50 px 50 px
300 px
250 px
480 px
430 px
RELATIVE SIZES OF A 320X50 THAT EXPANDS TO A 320X480, AND A 300X50 THAT EXPANDS TO A 300X300
iPhone/iPod Touch
All 14 of the respondents to this survey offered an iPhone/iPod Touch app, and so it comes as no surprise that this platform
sees the broadest diversity of creative sizes supported currently.
As with the other smartphone platforms examined, banners ads on iPhones are most commonly either 300x50 or 320x50.
However, several variant banner sizes exist on the platform. Larger ad sizes show great variability as well: this survey
captured no less than eight such ad sizes, ranging from 300x100 up to full-screen 320x480.
Android
Formats offered for Android are very typical of those for smartphones generally. The IAB’s survey found three different
“full screen” formats (and at least one respondent noted that sizes will vary further with device-specific screen resolution
differences). It also found 6 different banner resolutions, most of which were a constant 320 pixels wide with varying heights.
Blackberry
The diversity of Blackberry models underscores the potential issues marketers and agencies face as app platforms proliferate
and fragment further. Already at least one publisher offers ad sizes unique to specific models, such as the 240x50, “for Pearl
81xx/82xx and Flip only.” The IAB hopes that this will become less necessary (and less common) over time. Model-specific
creative formats will greatly increase marketer costs, likely deterring spending on in-app ads.
3 See: http://www.online-publishers.org/opa-ad-units.
4 See: http://www.iab.net/mobile_buyers_guide
PLATFORM: iPad
PLATFORM: iPhone
PLATFORM: Android
PLATFORM: Palm
PLATFORM: Symbian