HTML5 to Be New Industry Standard, Says IAB

Advertisers have long used Flash to make interactive ads online, but the IAB is going to ditch Flash for HTML5 as the new industry standard.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is going to set HTML5 as the new industry standard in interactive marketing.

On Monday morning, the IAB Technology Laboratory released updated “IAB Display Creative Guidelines,”where the organization encouraged the industry to migrate from Flash to HTML5 technology. For example, the IAB requires in-banner video advertisers to use control attributes in the HTML5 video tag, instead of providing custom assets, for displaying controls.

“The idea behind the revised guidelines is that the de facto standard – Flash – is not interoperable across devices. HTML5 is,” says Scott Cunningham, senior vice president of technology and ad operations at IAB, and general manager of the IAB Tech Lab. “It was time to update the protocols to reflect the changing nature of technology and its influence on the supply chain.”

The updates were designed to help the industry deliver rich, immersive digital ad creatives, according to the IAB. Many major industry players, including AOL, applauded this move.

“As HTML5 is an open web technology for which the browser support cross platform has become more ubiquitous, creatively, it sets the stage for more rich, thoughtful, personalized, and immersive cross-screen experiences to reach users no matter which device or environment they are using,” says Aaron Wood, director of production services, AOL premium experiences at AOL Platforms, and co-chair of the IAB Display Creative Working Group.

“The industry is no longer relying on a single, proprietary application for creative that requires a browser plugin to run for consumers,” he adds.

HTML5 has proven more effective than Flash. Industry research shows that during the first quarter of this year, 5.35 billion rich media impressions were wasted on mobile devices because they defaulted to Flash instead of HTML5.

Today’s upgrade includes major changes to key specs for the IAB Universal Ad Package, IAB Display and Mobile Rising Stars, which address issues such as file weights and packaging for optimal load performance when HTML5 is deployed.

The IAB will further make necessary changes after the public comment period ends on September 18 of this year.