Kiosked launches wrapper so any 360-degree video/still can fit into any mobile IAB ad format

From Kiosked

Kiosked, a Helsinki-based company with offices in LA and elsewhere, makes its living primarily by optimizing where ads go on a publisher’s desktop and mobile web sites.

Its real-time technology analyzes user attention on different parts of a page, as well as other factors like the page’s content, and recommends the optimal ad size, type and placement to publishers’ ad platforms, which have set up parameters. Currently, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Antti Pasila told me, the company has about 700 customers, including Answer.com, About.com and Forbes.

Now, the company has come out with a tech called 360 Panorama that adds a wrapper and tag to a 360-degree video or still ad so that it can fit in any Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) standard ad format on the mobile web. Traditionally, Pasila noted, mobile ads link out to a 360-degree still or video.

The ad format acts as a kind of window looking at the underlying 360-degree video. While the tech is “agnostic as to [ad] size,” Pasila said the best mobile ad units are 300 x 250 or 460 x 320. He added that, while it could be served on desktop web, the videos/stills in the ad unit work better on mobile because users can navigate through the 360-degree space by moving their phones, not by dragging a cursor.

Once an ad creative has been wrapped with Kiosked’s tags, which can be done within a day, it can be used in a brand’s standard ad ecosystem. Pasila noted that the publisher, on whose site the 360-degree video/still ad appears, doesn’t have to do anything.

He said he was unaware of anyone else offering this capability, which has been used for a couple of campaigns by unnamed brands. While companies like Immserv and Virtual Sky support 360-degree ad content, he pointed out that they were focused on in-app ads, while Kiosked is targeted at mobile web.