The Association for Downloadable Media has released a list of members who are in voluntary support of the preliminary standards and guidelines that have been created as a step toward helping companies become more comfortable utilitizing web-delivered programming. ZimmComm New Media is a charter member and on the list! We hope that this will continue to grow a major segment of the new media channels that companies have available now to target their customers and members.
The members endorsing this set of measurments and ad standards come from across the podcast and new media industry, and include marketers and ad agency people, podcast networks, individual content creators, and non profit organizations.
Both the advertising standards and audience measurement guidelines were created by open committees, then offered for public comment and feedback, and finally edited and ratified by the organization. Many of the organization’s members had already been following these formats. Now the member organizations advocate that these standards be adopted more widely across the podcast/new media industry. They argue that this will ease the creation of an organized market for advertisers to launch campaigns and/or become sponsors of episodic podcasts and video series.
The organization’s recommended standards for ad units include pre-, mid- and post-roll insertions, product placement within shows, and host endorsements, chosen from among the twenty-five creative options outlined in the standards document. The recommended measurement guidelines give each member company one of two reporting options, based on how their shows are hosted, either Native Server Measurement (NSM) or Third Party Measurement (TPM).
ADM member organizations who have adopted these standards argue that this simplifies how marketers create ad units, which then can be placed across multiple podcast networks, as well as in the shows of independent content producers, crafting a demographic and/or contextually targeted campaign. In addition, they argue, the audience measurement standards enable audience metrics to be compared more easily, as “apples-to-apples.”
“With the emergence of each new digital media it’s vital to create standardized ad units and measurement. Now that downloadable media companies are adopting these guidelines, ad agencies [are more likely to] include podcasts and vidcasts in their media recommendations.” said Susan MacDermid, SVP, Real Branding.
The ADM, founded in 2007, is open to both corporate and individual content producers, well as non-profits, advertising agencies and “solutions providers” in the portable media industry. Its focus is on the commercialization of web-based content.
Companies which have agreed to offer “at least a portion” of the ad units outlined in the standards document, and to report their audience metrics through one of the two methods outlined, are listed below.
COMPANY / CONTACT
BackBeat Media / Dave Hamilton
Bare Feet Studios / Roxanne Darling
Burst Media / Rob Simon
Circle of Seven Productions / Sheila English
Coverville / Brian Ibbott
Culinary Media Network / Jennifer Iannolo
Culture Catch / Richard Burns
IndieFeed / Chris Macdonald
KCRW / Jennifer Ferro
Kiptronic / Dave Rowley
Modified Media / Doug Taylor
NPR / Bryan Moffett
Personal Life Media / Susan Bratton
Podcast.com (Treedia Labs) / Glenn Gaudet
Podtrac / Mark McCrery
Portage Media Solutions / Jeremiah Staes
PRI / Morgan Church
Quick and Dirty Tips / Richard Rhorer
Raw Voice / Angelo Mandato
Revision3 / Jim Louderback
Sciencepodcasters.org / Ginger Campbell
SkydiverGirls.tv / Karen KFC Blanchette
Volomedia / Jeff Karnes
Wizzard Media / Chris MacDonald
ZimmComm New Media / Chuck Zimmerman