I’m happy to be writing this from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Aside from the spectacular location, I always enjoy the opportunity to meet and share ideas with the best and the brightest in our business. This year, we are also excited to be giving our advertising and publishing partners a sneak peek at the rich advertising solutions we’re creating for Windows 8 apps.

When developing Windows 8, Microsoft reimagined it with a focus on the consumer experience. We are creating opportunities for ads within Windows 8 apps in the same way – by putting people at the center of the experience. Over the last six months, I have spent a fair amount of time talking about our Windows 8 Advertising SDK  and the potential of Windows 8 to deliver rich, brand-safe ad experiences that will add value to consumers and increase engagement opportunities for marketers – check out my Microsoft Advertising blog posts from December last year and March this year. Today, we are one step closer to helping brands tell engaging stories to their customers in meaningful ways with beautiful ads in Windows 8 apps.

Microsoft Advertising is also taking a new approach in how we develop advertising experiences on Windows 8. True to our belief in fostering growth in the ecosystem, we’re partnering with some great creative agencies to ideate and visualize beautiful display experiences across a multitude of marketer goals for the Windows 8 apps ecosystem.

Our creative agency partners include AKQA, Big Spaceship, Razorfish, Team Detroit, UM and Y&R. All six will be lending us their creative minds and expertise as we co-develop early advertising concepts. With these partners, we will look to create a new standard for what ads within Windows 8 apps can and will be, as well as ensure that experiences will be engaging for consumers and effective for marketers and publishers. My colleague Stephen Kim, whose group is working directly with our agency co-development partners, has more to share here and will have additional updates in the coming months.

To give you a sense for what this might look like, here is an example of what an ad experience in a  Windows 8 app environment could potentially look like:

Fig. 1 The brand’s story, in this example Adidas, is integrated seamlessly within the Seattle Sounders FC app in the Windows 8 experience


Fig 2. Clicking on the Adidas ad will bring you to a rich brand landing experience that offers Adidas merchandise. A single click will take the customer back to the Seattle Sounders FC app which can be downloaded in the Windows 8 marketplace. 

 

Fig 3. A panoramic view of the full Seattle Sounders FC app (as it would look when swiped). As you can see the ad is at the end of the app. The background of the app can also integrate a brands videos, text or other rich assets.

We are excited about the early concepts and possibilities of advertising experiences in Windows 8 apps, and in the coming months we’ll have more to share as we start to outline specifics around offerings for marketers across the world. Stay tuned! 

Cheers,

Jenn Creegan, General Manager Display Advertising Experiences at Microsoft Advertising