YouTube Advertising Pushes Interactivity

As of late, there have been quite a few quality interaction experiences cited around the World Wide Web. While most of these unique ads simply play with the content of the page its sitting on, there are some that are pushing the boundaries.

With publishers opening more and more to the idea of increased ad rates for ads that do more than run in the assigned frame position, creative agencies are coming up with some very interesting assets.

The iPod touch ads that Apple ran across a number of large publishers were some of the first to take advantage of huge ad dimensions that focus on drawing all the user attention. Roadblocks and takeovers are nothing new, but the interactive component make for much better execution than a generic splash page.

Here are some examples of the Apple ad synced with page elements:

More recently, YouTube has been a destination for many advertisers to give synchronized ads a go. With their recent redesign and implementation of overlay ads, YouTube has positioned themselves to deliver advertisers an arsenal of tools to work with.

This week, Volvo utilized the YouTube homepage for their shot at a Viral ad for the all new 2010 XC60. The humongous ad spot featured a ton of components including a 'game' in which the user navigated city streets testing the functionality of "City Safety" braking.

Another element on the social side of the Volvo YouTube ad was a live Twitter feed displaying tweets related to Volvo and the XC60. The ad with feed also gave Volvo critical mass for its tweets from the NY Auto Show. Not only did the feed establish a user relationship upon a few reads, but also reinforced that this topic is buzzing in real time. I made a point to click the feed and read a little more, but this action proved another interesting utility of the ad to Volvo...I quickly tweeted about the ad and within moments was being followed by the Volvo Twitter account @VolvoXC60. Search query feeds are nothing new, but I found it intriguing that their own ad encouraged this, a perplexing cycle of data, indeed. Kudos to the Volvo XC60 team on a solid execution and in negotiating the largest YouTube hp ad to date.

There have been other strong examples of how advertisers have interacted with the videos themselves. Nintendo came across with Warios Shake Experience. And more recently ads for Rhythm Heaven on the DS have been spotted thumping with the beat along side popular music videos such as Justin Timberlake ft. Ciara and Kelly Clarkson.

Whichever your take on banner ads may be, it is good to see the methodology is constantly and rapidly evolving. As more and more brands spend larger portions of budgets online, it will be interesting to see the results. Advertising is the core revenue model for so many sites that publishers will have to be open to pushing the envelope. Those who sit back and enforce strict regulations will be those that fall off. The web has always promted fast paced change, and advertising is no different.