6 Mobile Ad Formats and Their Respective Spirit Animals

Advertising is a jungle. Take ad formats, for example. The variety of different sizes, behaviors, creatives, tech specs, etc., can overwhelm even the savviest of marketers. Yet these distinctions can make or break a campaign, which got us thinking: What if there were a way to capture the basic nature of an ad format—its animal spirit, as it were.

This article was originally published on AdWeek.

Advertising is a jungle. Take ad formats, for example. The variety of different sizes, behaviors, creatives, tech specs, etc., can overwhelm even the savviest of marketers. Yet these distinctions can make or break a campaign, which got us thinking: What if there were a way to capture the basic nature of an ad format—its animal spirit, as it were.

Finding a format that can hold up its end of the food chain is challenging. One that resembles, say, a bumbling warthog—we’re looking at you, standard mobile adhesion banner—just might end up as lunch for a cheetah. Below is our guide to six wild mobile units and their respective spirit animals:

1. LION: Interscroller

King of the jungle for a reason.

Lions are fierce—but only when they need to be. Their short bursts of energy ensure they get what they want, but unlike a pesky jackal or hyena, they don’t annoyingly yap about it. The qualities typically associated with a lion—popularity, authority, humbleness—are found in our Interscroller. Both publishers and users like it, it makes its point without being curt and then bows out gracefully, letting a reader continue on to his or her content.

2. EAGLE: Slider

Head over eagles.

For millennia the eagle has been “the messenger of the gods,” captivating humans with its huge wingspan and powerful eyesight. In a way, the standard Slider’s spirit animal is an eagle—it soars above content, revealing ad information from the brand gods, before settling back down into the branch, or slider bar, at the bottom of the page.

3. CHAMELEON: Reveal Banner

Now you see it, now you don’t.

While some animals may flaunt their bright colors, chameleons do just the opposite and blend into their environment. What they lack in ostentation they put to use in patience and foresight, waiting for just the right opportunity. Our Reveal banner uses the same principle—an ad that functions as a small capsule lying relatively dormant until given a chance to work its magic. Smart animations and dynamic creative capture a user’s attention, and all that’s needed is a simple click for more information.

4. HIPPO: Full Page Flex

Too big to fail?

The hippopotamus knows how to throw its weight around. Like the Full Page Flex ad, a hippo is big and makes its presence known. It can stretch to fit any device in both portrait and landscape orientations and play up to 30 seconds of video when initiated.

5. GIRAFFE: Filmstrip

Something to neck about.

One of the most unique animals in the animal kingdom is the giraffe: its long, spotted neck allows it to graze on the tops of trees while keeping on eye out for faraway predators. The gentle giant sometimes uses its neck to push its rivals aside and command attention, making it the perfect spirit animal for the Filmstrip Standard Display Unit. The ad rolls out more information each time a user swipes horizontally or vertically with their fingers, and can stretch to show more content should a user want to learn more about a particular section.

6. PUFFERFISH: Swell

A job swell done.

Adaptation is paramount to survival in the ad tech animal kingdom, and no one does it better than a pufferfish. Compact, but ready to transform into a shape several times its size, the pufferfish expands when necessary. Our Swell format works on that same principle, as a simple scroll gesture allows for the creative to fill a larger space and grab the user’s attention, before shrinking back down to let the reader keep scrolling.

Illustrations by Eric Nyffeler / Doe Eyed