Deviating from the mouse click

Tap here to try the Uniqlo Demo Touch Ad on your iOS device

With the introduction of the Flite Touch Ad Studio, we can only contemplate on the route that advertising is on. The talk of the town in recent years has been the emergence of mobile advertising. As an early adopter and constant innovator in the industry, Flite has been able to take a huge step forward with the release of the Touch Ad Studio.

This raises a lot of questions onto how the industry can evolve with the new form of advertising medium. It can sway toward a number of different paths, which can either define or bury this unique format we have been handed the keys to. So how can an ad deviate from the standard mouse click, and engage a user in new and exciting ways? Here are a few key points to help you toward your mobile advertising journey.

Scale

With touch ads, comparisons can be made of an ad to rich media that is displayed on desktop version websites. Take yourself out of that realm, and realize that mobile advertising is a whole different beast to take on. The scale of the mobile ad is quite different. In which iOS devices offer a screen size of on average 320x416 of viewable real estate. The emerging standard has been a 320x50 sized banner is displayed before the unit can expand to the viewable state. That leaves two different sizes to work with.

The difference between desktop and mobile ads is that a mobile unit is pretty much set on the 320x416 resolution, and isn’t too flexible. That doesn’t mean a unit has to be constrained to display content in that size. In fact, this is where a mobile ad can truly flourish and show its muscle. Utilizing touch components such as carousels, scrollable views, and buttons can go a long way. Take advantage of how a user can interact with touch gestures, and they may feel much more engaged that clicking away at the screen.

Standard vs. Retina Display

Speed

Most mobile devices run off of Wireless Internet, but that doesn’t mean it will always be accessible. That leaves devices with the options of Edge, 3G and LTE data networks for Internet access. This means units should have a constraint on file sizes, to optimize their display capabilities. Images can be optimized for retina display. This will ensure a crisp display of imagery for a unit. Yet it can also bulk up the size of a unit. This option may be best for vector based UI elements. The choice to do so may seem little, but it can go a very long way.

In other words, keep it simple! Don’t feel like you need to have the most elaborate ad unit that performs like an app. The networks won’t be able to truly display its content. Instead, work to display messaging that can engage the user, without feeling like there are too many options to navigate through. Limiting the unit to about 3 main content areas with a strong call to action gives the user flexibility and clarity. Invite the user to take the helm, and let them decide on how they can interact with the unit.

Social

With the rise of mobile Internet usage within each year, the increase of social interactivity is quite literally in the palm of your hand. Users have the ability to easily navigate through multiple social mediums at once. This gives a designer the option to utilize social components within the studio to their advantage. Utilizing Twitter, Facebook, news feeds, and YouTube to help drive the unit to its fullest capabilities. Video has become a staple for media displayed on mobile devices. In order to have content that is ahead of the rest, social interactivity brings it to a whole other level.

Conclusion

The idea of the mobile ad is give the designer a clean slate to create with. It doesn’t have to feel like a medium that constricts ideas. There are multitudes of ways a mobile ad can perform and interact. Realizing scale does not mean content should feel small. Optimizing imagery to its core value and messaging can help design speak volumes. It should always be quality before quantity. Keeping the social aspect of an advertisement has also become a prevalent factor in media strategy. As time goes on, it seems to be an ongoing process for the mobile platform to be utilized properly. The route that advertising has taken is a little hazy, but soon may prove to be an exciting time ahead.

Sources

StatCounter – Mobile Internet Usage is Doubling Year on Year

http://gs.statcounter.com/press/mobile-internet-usage-is-doubling-year-on-year

Mashable.com – 5 Tips for Better Advertising in Mobile Apps

http://mashable.com/2011/03/11/mobile-app-advertising/

Graphic Sound: Music at Work

by Hector Jaime

"You will always do your best work if you listen to music you like while you work."
—David Carson, CMYK Magazine, Vol. 53

I find Carson's statement to be true, which is why music in the office can sometimes be the bane of my existence. Someone will be blasting Iron Maiden (never happens), I'm executing some killer designs (sometimes happens), then somebody decides to play some electronic dance music (often happens), and I am done for.

Much can be said about the connection between design and music, or work productivity and music in general. Research shows that listening to music helps with creativity because of the amount of activity it fires up in my brain. If I'm extra lucky, I'll get to work on ads or design projects that  focus primarily on music, like the below examples of ads we recently created at Flite for Sony:

The simple fact is that certain music puts me in a good mood, which means my designs will turn out better or at the very least, I will enjoy the process more. I believe this is true for my fellow designers here at Flite's Creative Lab, so I've asked them to submit the names of songs they listen to while designing in order to create the perfect design mix tape (see above). I'll let them describe why they listen to these songs. Me, I just like noisy rock and roll. Instrumental music also helps. Sometimes I prefer silence. What about you? What music inspires you to be creative? Or would you rather not listen to music while you work? We're dying to know.

Notes and further reading

Rhapsody, Sony, the Vidal Partnership and MTV have used the Flite platform to create ads focusing on music. To find out more contact us.

Electronic music is generally not my cup of tea, but for a good article about the connection between design and digital music, check out fastcodesign.com.

More in line with my music taste, here is a great article from Design Observer on the visual aesthetics of heavy metal.

David Carson's work for Raygun revolutionized print graphic design. I'm hoping the soon to be released iPad version of Raygun will do the same for digital design. We can at least expect it to look different from everything else on the web.

The music used in the Creative Lab Mix retains the copyright of its respective owner.

“It's not there. I must be going crazy.”

By Kevin Fox

When I fist made attempts to make Flite Ad Studio 3 components, my first foundation steps would fail. I wanted to make a custom video player or a custom feed, and I would meticulously code using the documentation and then I would get confused because the code was correct according to the examples, but nothing traced out, not even 'null'. "Why is the object not appearing? This is crazy!" Here is why; it's easy to trip over at first...

In the component studio there is an INSPECTOR panel. In the INSPECTOR panel there is a tab called DEPENDENCIES. If the dependency is not checked for the API item that you are trying to use, you are not going to get anything at runtime. Only a few API calls require you to check a respective checkbox, so it can be easy to forget if you are focusing on bigger campaign-related solutions. If I was keener I would have memorized all the API items in the checkbox list below (click thumbnail below screen cap to get enlarged view of list).

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Why DEPENDENCIES? Why the snag wire? If this was not available, the ad would have more KB size than it really needs. In the same model as TweenLite, we want the ad loading only the code it really needs. I originally thought code amount didn't weigh down a SWF much. It's just text right? It can't be as hefty as an image or font, right? I know better now. A modest 300 line class can add more weight than you'd think. Add a few more classes and things tally up quick.

I'll end with a few size factoids: Our runtime, give or take, is very roughly, around 55KB. A modest sized component with a dependency or two is very roughly 30KB. If that component loads an XML feed that has about 15-20 items, that can add around 25KB. You can see how size management can become important in a world where publishers' size specs have mysteriously not changed in 8 years.