Freeserve leads dispute over ad format changes: the IAB's plans to standardise ad formats with fewer, larger sizes has created much debate in the sector. (Analysis)

New Media Age, July, 2003 by Chris Dillabough

Industry body the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) never expected its proposal to change the size and composition of the standard toolbox of Web ad formats to go unchallenged. But the time and effort portal Freeserve has put into producing research to undermine it, published last week, probably caught the IAB by surprise.

Freeserve's study attacks what it describes as "current thinking" in the industry: that standard formats ought to be fewer in number, to streamline both media planning and creative production, and larger in both size and weight (number of kilobytes), to give creative agencies opportunity to produce more engaging ads. It argues that, rather than dropping smaller formats, which have allegedly been superceded by larger equivalents, standards ought...