Creating New CTV Ad Standards
You know those quirky new ads you’ve started seeing when you’re watching your favorite streaming service? One media executive recently mentioned to me that each of those ads was unique to whatever environment the viewer is in, which means that each one needs different creatives to produce, different ways to trigger user interactions, and different ways to actually run the ad.
My first thought was, what was this industry thinking when it decided to create so many unique, special-snowflake ways to do something which will not scale well?
My next thought was that this development mirrors a lot of other trends in streaming (I’m looking at you, custom workflows). Fortunately, IAB Tech Lab is trying to create order from the chaos that is new ad formats. Talking to folks at IAB Tech Lab is like a breath of fresh air because the organisation exists only for making the industry better.
Introducing the IAB Tech Lab Ad Format Hero Initiative
IAB Tech Lab has recently released some new standards for CTV advertising, known as the Ad Format Hero Initiative.
The organisation asked and received more than 100 CTV ad format descriptions/concepts from the industry on classifying new formats. Next up, they ran an industry survey (completed 26 April 2025) to determine what should be prioritised. The Ad Format Hero Task Force selected eight formats based on the survey results. The idea is to create standards so that sensibly, engineering and operations teams don't have to reinvent the wheel every time they want to insert the right creative. These include the following:
- The pause ad: Pause ads happens after viewers stop their video content. An ad will then appear as a full or partial screen overlay. Viewers can either interact with the ad or resume playback. Interaction usually takes the form of a QR code.
- Overlay ads: These ads are nonlinear and may exist outside of a normal ad break. They appear as an overlay over the existing content in either image or video and may incorporate user interaction like scanning a QR code.
- Menu/home screen ads: These ads are initiated by the operating system or streaming app and they provide either static or video creatives within the main home screen interface. Specs for these ads can vary depending on the system and the menu carousel. They may also have user interaction with the remote control or a QR code.
- The screensaver ad: This one sounds similar to a pause, but it’s initiated by either the OS or the app. The approach is a static image which is either a full or partial screen takeover. Again, viewers may interact with a QR code.
- In-screen insertion ad: Previously when I’ve written about this, I’ve called it in-screen placement. These ads require integration into the content and the technical process is a bit more involved. Previously, content owners spoke to us about having to get permission from the original creators about what types of brands they want to support within their content. I would say this issue hasn’t gone away. In fact, Gen AI has probably made it much more.
- Squeeze-back ad or squeeze-back content: These two, to my mind, go together because in both cases, the content in the ads coexist within the window.
- Immersive extendable ads: This last category includes things like choosing the type of ad you want to see, such as shoppable ads, or having ads that link to a second-screen experience. For the most part, it sounds like the user interaction of choice is a QR code, but there may be other things which these ad formats can offer, as long as that event can be handled gracefully across platforms.
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IAB Tech Lab Ad Format Hero Finalists
The one big thing I’m surprised to see missing from this list is a category for ads driven by AI. While this doesn’t sound like a specific format and may be more of an implementation issue, I still feel it’s important to include. In the future, I think of all these ad formats, this will be the most important capability. The option to A/B test ad formats to see which ones resonate will determine how all advertising will be delivered.
The IAB Tech Lab Ad Format Hero Task Force is now determining the requirements for standardisation of these new Ad Formats. The Digital Video Sub Working Group and the Programmatic Supply Chain Working Group will then begin the work of integrating the new formats into existing standards such as OpenRTB, VAST, SIMID, and any others that are needed. This will result in the CTV Ad Portfolio Guidance released early Q4, 2025. If you are interested in joining these groups, please email memberships@iabtechlab.com.