It has been 10 years since video advertising started in the internet. The standards that were introduced at that time to have consistency across the interweb are now dated. With increased technology in mobile, tablet and over the top devices (Roku, Amazon Fire Stick etc.) it is time for an update. The video ad ecosystem is running on outdated standards that limit accurate measurement and scale for agencies and publishers.
Background: VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) 2.0 and VPAID (Video Player Ad-Serving Interface Definition) 1.0 launched almost a decade ago. The video ad standards initially aimed to standardize compatibility between ad servers and video players to allow publishers to scale. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released VAST 4.0, however, adoption was slow due to limitations with verification and interactivity. The new VAST 4.1 delivers improved viewability measurement, provides better delivery across over the top (OTT) and mobile devices, standardizes macro support and offers closed captioning options.
Viewability and Measurement: Viewability measurement required VPAID, which often required tags to be wrapped by an additional verification provider such as DoubleVerify or Integral Ad Science. Now VAST 4.1 is compatible with the Open Measurement Interface Definition (OMID) which enables VAST inventory measurement without using a VPAID wrapper. Video assets no longer need to be wrapped in code to capture viewability metrics making VPAID obsolete. VAST 4.1 will be the standard format.
VAST 4.1 would generate a unique ID every time an ad is served to be included on outgoing pixels to improve discrepancies and troubleshooting. In addition, VAST 4.1 introduces the concept of interactive templates for mobile and OTT environments. Lastly, macros are typically used to pass data from the publishers to the ad server, however, they’re not standardize across publishers. VAST 4.1 proposes to solve this issue. The new format will also get rid of flash being used in ads, as flash has been slowly fading away and is no longer supported in certain environments.
Recommendation & Next Steps: The adoption to VAST 4.1 is gradual and changes will roll out in a phased approach. Agencies should work with all partners to provide timely updates. It will behoove publishers to generate VAST inventory that is measurable to increase demand in premium inventory.
Teams that are focused in buying more mobile video inventory now have the benefit of receiving performance and engagement metrics in VAST inventory and can start to get data right way from the player by pushing vendors to adopt VAST 4.1. A standardize version for video will streamline day-to-day digital ad trafficking and supports multi-device measurement across the board. This is important to your clients because you want to be able to provide robust metrics and make media recommendations based on what video creative is the most effective. You can have 3 different videos for example, for your client at Kia, with this new measurement you will have more data to support which of the 3 creative versions resonates more with your target audience.
It will be up to publishers to adopt VAST 4.1. We expect that there will be immediate adoption by some of the big publishers, but more widespread adoption will take some time similar to the demise of flash.
Resources
https://martechtoday.com/iab-tech-lab-releases-final-version-of-vast-4-1-that-incorporates-unprecedented-level-of-feedback-227528
https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/327797/iab-tech-lab-releases-final-version-of-vast-41.html
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