‘Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definitions’–MRAID–Empowers Seamless In-App Advertising Across the Mobile Landscape
NEW YORK – The IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence today released the final version of “Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definitions,” or MRAID. This initiative defines a common API (Application Programming Interface) for mobile rich media advertisements, establishing a framework of principles and guidelines to help the mobile marketplace reach new levels of consistency, efficiency and effectiveness.
Mobile’s range of benefits has secured incredible interest from agencies, publishers, vendors and ad designers, driving rapid growth. However, the accelerated speed of adoption also led to inefficiencies, including a marketplace cluttered with multiple, incompatible APIs from a variety of rich media vendors working with publishers to enable in-app advertising. This fragmentation placed undue burden on marketers and agencies, requiring that their advertisement’s underlying code be rewritten several times in order to run across different apps. With MRAID in place, the API “Tower of Babel” will be eliminated, allowing agencies to be able to quickly and easily run creative across applications from different publishers.
“With apps becoming more and more central to the consumer mobile experience and brand marketers’ plans, the industry needs to have set guidelines and principles when it comes to communication between ads and apps,” said Joe Laszlo, Deputy Director of the IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence. “MRAID is the next crucial step in bringing mobile to scale.”
“Greater emphasis is being placed on mobile by advertisers, which is a fantastic tribute to mobile’s benefits for brands. However, the industry’s rapid growth also gave birth to a number of inefficiencies that need to be addressed if we’re to move ahead,” said Scott Jensen, Vice President of Digital Products & Applications at The Weather Channel Companies, a participating member company of the IAB’s Mobile Marketing Center Board of Directors. “Simplifying and streamlining the process for designers of ad creative through MRAID today will only further the chance of stronger mobile media buys in the future.”
For a copy of MRAID 1.0 and more information about MRAID, the working group and its members, please visit: http://www.iab.net/mraid.
About the IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence
The IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, an independently funded and staffed unit inside the IAB, is charged with driving the growth of the mobile marketing, advertising and media marketplace. The Mobile Center devotes resources to market and consumer research, mobile advertising case studies, executive training and education, supply chain standardization, creative showcases and best practice identification in the burgeoning field of mobile media and marketing. Our agenda will focus on building profitable revenue growth for companies engaged in mobile marketing, communications and advertising, and helping publishers, marketers and agency professionals understand and leverage interactive tools and technologies in order to reach and influence the consumer. For more information or to find out how to join, please visit www.iab.net/mmcoe.
About the IAB
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 500 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.
