Engagement Ads: Lightning in a Bottle

Firefly Video is the latest entrant in the online video ad network game – and their expertise is engagement ads.

The company's style of engagement ads appear as standard rectangles with a ‘turned up’ corner pop-up. Click on the pop-up and nearly a whole page of video with interactive elements, maps, and more video moves center page – all for the consumer’s entertainment and engagement.

The draw for advertisers is they can reuse TV commercials already created from a million dollar investments. Firefly Video has been developing the private beta site with 25 ad partners, including Mercedes-Benz.

Unlike pre-roll ads, engagement ads introduce video onto web pages and don’t intrude in the online experience. According to TechCrunch, Firefly Video works with sister company Tribal Fusion  to buy ad space and enable delivery of strategic targeting goals.

Tribal Fusion reaches 120 million US uniques which serves as ad inventory for Firefly, along with the ability to target ads by multiple data points including geographic, demographic, day part, and content.

Engagement ads as a concept are not new. Videoegg entered the engagement ad arena two years ago, while Facebook also offers engagement ads.

What is most significant is that Firefly is betting the farm on the concept in concert with Tribal Fusion, which is one of the biggest ad networks – and both are owned by Exponential Interactive.

It’s a big step forward for the ad industry — capturing the firefly lightning in a bottle…er, and ad. One more step in the seamless integration of content and brand messaging, the holy grail of engagement advertising and an experience the consumer is coming to expect.