iPad advertising: pockets of innovation

Interactive in-app advertising continues to lag in most tablet editions. From the outside, it seems that more experimentation should be taking place. Publishers need to encourage – and actively support – advertisers’ efforts to deliver new types of ads that take advantage of the tablet medium.

A recent study by Kantar Media found that most tablet ads are repurposed prints ads (full report below). Here are a few examples of innovative approaches to tablet ads.

Punch

Punch, a recently released humor magazine for the iPad, integrates ads with editorial features on its “Culture Shelf” – the app’s homepage equivalent. Among its offerings for advertisers are interactive ad units customized for each brand. Here’s an example from Punch’s media kit:

Punch Media CEO and co-founder David Bennahum told Adweek that he believes tablet advertising should not simply mimic print or Web models:

“We wanted to do an ad unit, but we wanted to reinvent how it works for the tablet’s deep, immersive experience. Tablets can do the emotional of the best TV advertising, and they can give you the deep dive of the best print advertising in terms of educating you.”

Google

This tablet ad, created as part of Google’s Project Re:Brief experiment to re-imagine digital advertising, creates a personalized, animated ad for each story that customers share about their experience with Avis.

Mag+

Mike Haney, US director for Mag+, provides a walkthrough of a few different examples of ads in iPad editions, two built in HTML5 and others built using the Mag+ platform. 

10 insights

Kantar Media reviewed advertisements in more than 50 iPad editions of consumer magazines and came up with 10 observations about what’s working and what’s missing.