Digital advertising drives creative innovation. There have been some awkward times (why do you want me to punch that monkey so badly?!), but the technologies that power ads play a major role in shaping our online experiences. I recently told TechCrunch where creative technology is going, but this blog post is all about how we got here. Let's explore the most commonly used technologies when it comes to building digital advertising creative.
Adobe Photoshop
Audiences saw the first banner ad in 1994. It was a 468x60 pixel .jpeg image. Most early display ads were just image files displayed in a web environment. Credit Photoshop as the original creative technology behind the first banner ad. It is still the juggernaut behind most still image creative you see.
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly known Macromedia Flash) was a multimedia software platform used for animation and interactive web applications. It was also used to build a shit ton of display ads. With software plugins required, Flash was a memorably clunky user experience. It was eventually deprecated, but the death of Flash was so disruptive that the great Google automatically converted Flash ads into HTML5 to keep their advertising machine from hemorrhaging revenue. Some of the first rich media ads were built using Flash.
Rich Media Platforms
Companies like Point Roll and EyeBlaster developed software purpose-built to help brands create even more engaging ad experiences. These early rich media platforms made it easier for marketers to develop and deliver ads with interactive features. Today, we think of rich media as anything beyond a basic text or image experience. Even though rich media has been around since 1996, it still represents a large percentage of the ads you see online today.
Early rich media offerings certainly helped advertisers to build more engaging creative, but in some cases this went a little overboard. Before broadband connections were the norm, rich media ads would significantly slow down page load times and some ads would expand to cover content or critical areas of site navigation. Over the years, standards would evolve to help protect the user experience and rich media ads represent a significant amount of digital ads we see today.
Platforms like Celtra powered the next wave of rich media creative by bringing even more interactive capabilities into ads. Celtra's platform played a key role in the growth of high-impact ad networks like Undertone and Kargo, but at the end of the day, production costs remain high. Celtra's approach saw significant early adoption spurring investment in in-house capabilities and innovation across the industry.
Dynamic Creative (DCO)
Dynamic Creative Optimization is technology that uses variables like location, behavior, device, demographics, and context to deliver more personalized ad experiences. Some dynamic creative executions involve predetermined decision trees like showing ads for bagels in the morning and burgers in the afternoon. More impressive executions leverage artificial intelligence to test and learn using thousands of creative variations and determine exactly which iterations are most likely to drive the marketer's desired outcomes. Flashtalking, one of the first DCO platforms, was acquired by MediaOcean in 2021 for a reported half a billion dollars, suggesting there is some pretty serious tech here!
Criteo, founded in 2005, was one of the first companies to offer a new type of digital marketing called retargeting. Retargeting services DCO to audiences who have performed specific actions (like abandoning a shopping cart). While some people find retargeting creepy from a privacy perspective, the technology behind retargeting creative represented a major leap forward in creative automation. Brands simply provided retargeting companies with a digital version of their product catalog, and the ad creative is automatically generated based on browsing behavior!
Creator Marketplaces
Don't want to build an ad yourself? Platforms like Tagger and Influential help brands find influencers and content creators to create social content on their behalf. In addition to helping brands reach wider audiences, influencers can help brands create authentic content that drives greater engagement than traditional display ads.
