Sizmek hopes to redefine DCOs with its newest creative tool

Two versions of an ad for Sizmek, made in its new DCO tool.

Ad management/serving platform Sizmek is today launching a new version of its HTML5-based creative tool, which it hopes will help redefine the category of Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO).

Called Rich Media for Programmatic Creative, the self-service product is the latest iteration of the company’s Programmatic Creative solution, which is a creative platform that helps to automatically assemble ads from mix-and-match creative components for different needs and audiences.

An asset library in Sizmek’s newest version of its DCO.

Canaan Schladale-Zink, VP for sales in the Americas, told me that the new features include a faster workflow, a unique availability in the user interface of segmentation from a data management platform (DMP) like Adobe Audience Manager, a visual workflow for designing creative strategy, expandable banners that work in programmatic platforms, and the ability to do an edit during preview.

This last capability is one of the reasons the company is pitching this as “a new evolution of DCO,” which traditionally has been seen as being more automated than, say, the manual control offered by creative tools like Creative Management Platforms (CMPs).

“Our platform,” Product Marketing Manager for Dynamic Creative Kelsey Meuse told me, “is the best of both worlds — creative at scale,” but enabling pixel-perfect manual controls that offer a “balance between automation and control.”

As an example, she said a travel advertiser might create an image-and-text ad for a vacation sale, where the text includes pricing data that is automatically updated from a database. But the advertiser might want to change the image during preview for certain audience segments, and the new tool enables that.

The tool is available for any trading desk, publisher, network, advertiser, or media agency, not only for those employing Sizmek’s ad platform. The Austin, Texas-based company says it is the second-largest ad server, after Google’s DoubleClick.