Multi Player Video Ad

The Multi-Player Video Ad delivers a growing number of player experiences. There are three required elements for submission; video and at least one of the companion ads will always display.

• Video: Streaming ad (4:3 aspect ratio or 16:9 aspect ratio) – For the duration of the streaming element, see “video duration” in Ad Specification Details above

• Large Companion: 300x250 Present only on portal experiences, not on inline video.

   

• Small Companion: 300x60 Present in both portal and all inline experiences.
   

The End-User Experience

1. The user chooses to view streaming content.
2. The streaming ad plays and the 300x250 and/or 300x60 companion ads display in close proximity to the player.

1. Video will always display
2. The video player will determine whether to display one of both companion ads units. There are several possible display modes:
   1. Video + Small Companion (e.g. MSN Inline Player)
   2. Video + Small Companion + Large Companion (e.g. MSN Destination or MSNBC players)
3. The Player will hide the control buttons during the streaming ad play which will not allow the user the opportunity to stop the stream during the ad. The only option the user will have to close out of the advertisement is by closing the player completely.
4. If the advertisement is stopped or closed, the user will not see the selected content stream.
5. Large Companion Ad Behavior:
   1. Some players will have the large companion ad expand out into view while others will have it visible while the video ad stream is playing.
   2. In some experiences, users may have the option of closing and/or re-opening the 300x250 ad afer it is expanded. Closing this element will not stop the pre-roll or alter the 300x60. Pharmaceutical advertisers, especially in the US must be aware of the companion ad behavior of the specific placement they are buying. Contact your account team for Pharma specific considerations.
   3. If the large companion has expanded, upon completion of the advertising stream, the expanding section will retract back into the player.
   4. The 300x250 may or may not remain present after the streaming ad has played. This element may or may not be present during the following content clip.

3. The selected streaming content plays.
4. If present, the 300x60 horizontal companion ad remains present during video ad stream and the following content clip.
5. This combined ad experience appears after a market specific amount of content has played (duration varies by market between 120 and 240 seconds. Contact your account team for market specific details.)
   1. This can be any number of short clips totaling the market specific time trigger or after a single piece of content longer than that duration.
   2. In the case where a clip exceeds the minimum content duration, an ad will be played immediately after the clip is complete.
6. Click through details:
   1. MPVA ads feature clickable video. (Videos ads shown in the Associate Press syndicated player in the US are not clickable at this time.)
   2. The video and any companion ads share the same click through URL.
7. There is no ad shown when the content stream is user generated content from Soapbox.

Streaming Ad Requirements
Accepted video formats (note: these formats will be re-encoded into WMV and FLV file formats)

• Windows Media Format (preferred), QuickTime, MPEG, AVI
• Sound is required
• Max file size = 2MB
• Digital files should be built to fit either 4:3 (w432x320h) frame dimensions or 16:9 (w424x240h) frame dimensions

300x60 Companion Ad Requirements
There are 2 options for submitting the expanding ad unit:

• 300x60 JPEG – required
• 300x60 Flash file – optional (Flash files require that an FSCommand is embedded in the file. For detailed Flash guidelines, visit advertising.microsoft.com.)

300x250 Companion Ad Requirements

• 300x250 JPEG file - required
• 300x250 SWF file – optional (Flash files require that an FSCommand is embedded in the file. For detailed Flash guidelines, visit advertising.microsoft.com.)
• Unable to support .gif or animated .gif images
• Max file size = 20k per each file

Limitations:

• Only .jpg images can be submitted (cannot use .gif)
• Third-party served JPEG images will not be supported. All images must be hosted by MSN
• One click through URL is used as the CT for video, the small and large companion ads. Different click through URLs for the small and large companion ad are not supported.

• Impressions
• Click-through (there is one CT URL for the whole ad)
• On Load (video play started)
• Duration Track (7.5 second mark)
• End Track (end of video reached)