In 2024, IAB Tech Lab, the global digital advertising technical standards-setting body, launched the Ad Format Hero initiative, aimed at standardizing emerging Connected TV (CTV) ad formats that are common enough to warrant standardized ways to describe them in the bid stream and give platforms the telemetry required to deliver them. Once complete, these standards will enable efficient programmatic transactions and broader adoption across the industry with ‘build once, serve everywhere’ ad formats. IAB Tech Lab is now ready to survey the industry as the next stage of the initiative.
“CTV is experiencing explosive growth, but we’re still in the early innings of figuring out how to make it work at scale,” said Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab at the time of launch. “The industry is full of new ad formats that show promise but lack the technical standards to take off. ‘Ad Format Hero’ is about cutting through the noise, finding what works, and giving it the structure needed to thrive. As we have done for early web advertising and with digital video, we want to set up the whole CTV ecosystem to succeed.”
Format submissions closed on January 31st 2025. The industry response was beyond our expectations with over 100 ad format submissions from 36 companies. The Ad Format Hero Task Force was established to curate and review the Ad Format Hero ad submissions. Participating Task Force members, nominated by IAB Tech Lab’s Advanced TV Commit Group and Working Group, including over 20 companies spanning DSPs, SSPs, SSAIs ,Broadcasters & MVPDs.
Out of those submissions, the Ad Format Hero Task Force was able to identify 7 types of ad formats, which are listed below:
- Pause Ads
- Menu and Home Screen Ads
- Screensaver
- Overlay Ads over Content
- In-Scene Insertion Ads
- Ads Alongside or Adjacent to Content
- Squeeze Back Ad within Ad Break
In addition to those formats, the Task Force has identified ad creatives with immersive/extendable features that can be utilized in these new ad formats. You can view examples of the creatives, with a description of how they function on both the survey form or the Ad Format Hero page.
The goal of the CTV Ad Format Hero Ad Format Industry Survey is to go beyond the technical requirements for these ad formats and look at the business, adoptability, and viewer impressions of these types of executions. By better understanding the industry interest in each ad format, we will be able to make more informed prioritization in standardizing them. The survey will run from March 19th 2025 through April 20th 2025. Results will be reviewed by the CTV Ad Format Hero Task Force and presented at IAB and IAB Tech Lab events later this year, including IAB Newfronts and Tech Lab Summit: Through the Looking Glass.
Raymond Holton
Sr Director, Advanced TV
IAB Tech Lab