Advertise
For more information on how to advertise on the ‘Get Ahead of the Curve’ website contact:
Louise McNeill
Media Account Executive
+44 (0)850 686 0055
louise@goldminemedia.co.uk
or
Sam Purchase
Senior Media Account Executive
+44 (0)850 686 0055
sam@goldminemedia.co.uk
Advertising Specifications
Specifications for ‘Get Ahead of the Curve’ online ad formats. This includes all standard and expandable ad formats and all new ad formats along with delivery information and contact details. Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact our Ad Operations Manager: steve@goldminemedia.co.uk
Please take some time to read the following guidelines for different creative applications for use on ‘Get Ahead of the Curve’. We are constantly working with agencies and clients and will keep you informed of developments and extensions to these guidelines.
Non-Expandable Creative
Maximum File Size for all of below is 40k
MPU: 320 wide x 250 high (pixels)
Skyscraper: 120 wide x 600 high (pixels)
Leaderboard: 728 wide x 90 high (pixels)
Super Leaderboard: 980 wide x 90 high (pixels)
Half Page: 320 wide x 600 high (pixels)
Ribbon: 980 wide x 60 high (pixels)
Article Banner: 468 wide x 60 high (pixels)
Button Tile: 120 wide x 60 high (pixels)
Delivery Formats
GM hosted GIF: Send GIF file and click through URL
GM hosted Flash: Send swf file using Click Tag click tracking method, backup GIF and click through URL. Please See ‘Flash and Rich Media Instructions’ section for further information on supplying Flash Creatives.
Third Party Hosted: We accept only iFrame tags and internal redirects. Please include detailed implementation instructions.
Expandable Creatives
We accept expandable Rich Media adverts only from third party agencies and do not produce them in-house. Rich Media adverts must be provided through an iFrame.
Initial File Size for all of below is 40k
MPU: 320 wide x 250 high (pixels)
Skyscraper: 120 wide x 600 high (pixels)
Leaderboard: 728 wide x 90 high (pixels)
Super Leaderboard: 980 wide x 90 high (pixels)
Half Page: 320 wide x 600 high (pixels)
Ribbon: 980 wide x 60 high (pixels)
Article Banner: 468 wide x 60 high (pixels)
Notes on Expandable Creatives
We serve ads through an iFrame and require you to provide the code to allow the ad to expand. All expandable creatives require editorial approval. Creatives must contract on roll-off. Please see ‘Flash and Rich Media Instructions’ section for further information on supplying Flash Creatives.
Page Skin
Width 1600 x Length 1200:
- No Click To remove
- No Animation of Skins allowed
- Low Frequency
- Only able to run through a third party and must be Rich Media
- Agency to supply the third party with a GIF or JPG – 1600 wide x 1200 high (pixels) creative – middle (980 pixels) must be blank
- Third party to provide Tag that we traffic as an intrusive ad
- Max weight of creative the third party allows is 300k for Eyeblaster, and 400k for Flash
General Notes
White Creative: All white and light-coloured creatives must have a dark one-pixel border.
Click into new window: All ads must click into a new browser window.
Browser compliance: We target all Rich Media ads to all versions of IE and Firefox unless otherwise instructed. We target GIF ads to all browsers unless otherwise instructed.
Rich Media: For Flash, Expandable creatives, please See ‘Flash and Rich Media Instructions’ section for further information.
Testing: All solutions are subject to final senior editorial approval (Rich Media campaigns are subject to testing).
Flash Versions: We accept all versions of Macromedia/Adobe Flash up to version 10.
Technical Contact: For all Rich Media campaigns we need the name of your technical contact.
Lead Time: Please allow 2 days lead time for GIFs and 5 days for all other creatives.
Sound: All sound must be user click activated.
Misleading Ads: We will not carry any form of advertising that is deemed to be misleading or confusing to our users.
CPU: We may measure CPU, and reject or remove ads that drive the CPU too high (i.e. negatively affect the speed of the page load or certain page functionality). Please See ‘Flash and Rich Media Instructions’ section for further information on supplying Flash Creatives.
Guidelines on Photosensitive Effects
(Affecting people with complaints such as epilepsy and migraine)
General Flash Threshold
A sequence of flashes or rapidly changing image sequences where both the following occur:
1. The combined area of flashes occurring concurrently (but not necessarily contiguously) occupies more than one quarter of any 335 x 268 high (pixels) rectangle anywhere on the displayed screen area when the content is viewed at 1024 x 768 high (pixels) and;
2. There are more than three flashes within any one-second period.
Note: For the general flash threshold, a flash is defined as a pair of opposing changes in brightness of 10% or more of full scale white brightness, where brightness is calculated as .2126*R + .7152*G + .0722B using linearised R, G, and B values. Linearised-X = (X/FS)^2.2 where FS is full scale (usually 255 today). An “opposing change” is an increase followed by a decrease, or a decrease followed by an increase.
Red Flash Threshold
A transition to or from a saturated red where the following occurs: The combined area of flashes occurring concurrently occupies more than one quarter of any 335 x 268 high (pixel) rectangle anywhere on the displayed screen area when the content is viewed at 1024 x 768 high (pixels) and there are more than three flashes within any one-second period.
Contacts:
All creative should be supplied to our Ad Operations Manager at: steve@goldminemedia.co.uk
Flash and Rich Media instructions
We will need the following information:
Flash builder/designer name/designer phone number and CPU Usage Guidelines.
We will need the following items for each creative:
Both the original Flash file (.fla) which has been modified to our requirements and the corresponding shockwave file (.swf)
Click through URL
Alternative GIF
Whenever a banner is supplied that has a background colour other than black or white, we need the hexadecimal code supplied to us (i.e. – the 6 figure code made up of letters and numbers).
Instructions and specifications on how to build flash banners. We can only accept Shockwave/Flash up to version 10.
There are currently several versions of the Shockwave/Flash player in use. The earlier the version, the higher the penetration of users. There are pros and cons with using earlier or later versions of the player, higher penetration versus the level of functionality available. We accept up to and including version 10 compatible .swf files. You can use Macromedia Flash MX (Version 6 of the Flash application) to develop your fla files, but you must then publish them so they can be viewed by users using the Flash 10 player. These publish settings are found under: (File/Publish Settings).
Dialogue Window Settings
Current Profile: Default
Version: Flash Player 10 (Maximum, depends on Flash software version)
Load Order: Bottom Up (Flash 3)
Action Script Version: Action Script 3.0 (or 2.0)
Options: Compress movie & Export/Include hidden layers checked. All other Options check boxes unchecked
Script time limit: 15 seconds
JPEG quality: 80%
Audio stream: MP3, 16kbps, Mono
Audio Event: MP3, 16kbps, Mono (Overide sound settings & Export device sounds unchecked)
Local playback security: Access local files only
We use the ClickTag method for passing URLs to Flash Media and tracking clicks.
If this aspect of the flash file has not been properly implemented problems will arise that may lead to the delay or under-performance of your campaign. There is no need to insert any URL or link in your fla file that is all handled using the ClickTag layer. The code you will be using in your ClickTag layer button will look like this:
Actionscript 2.0
Note: This code is always attached directly to the invisible button:
on (release) {
if (clickTag.substr(0,4) == “http”) {
getURL(clickTag, “_blank”);
}
}
Actionscript 3.0
Note: The following is the Actionscript 3 click tag. This code must NOT be attached directly to the invisible button! The code should be placed on the timeline in the first frame. The invisible button in this case must have the instance name of “invisible_btn”:
invisible_btn.addEventListener(
MouseEvent.CLICK,
function():void {
if (root.loaderInfo.parameters.clickTag.substr(0,4)==”http”) {
navigateToURL(
new URLRequest(root.loaderInfo.parameters.clickTag),
“_blank”
);
}
}
);
We draw your attention particularly to the “_blank” part of this code in both examples. We frequently encounter problems when this is omitted by designers.
Wmode Setting
Please make sure the wmode is set to ‘opaque’ and not ‘window’. Please note also: The quotation marks in either of the two action script examples above (Actionscript 2 & 3) are set as Straight rather than Curly or Smart quotes. It is essential, for the coding to work, that quotation marks are always Straight. Although we have made every effort to ensure that the code on this page is correct it is possible that, in some web browsers and possibly under other circumstances beyond our control, quotation marks will be re-rendered as Curly/Smart, which will stop your actionscript from working. This can be easily fixed by pasting the examples into a basic text editor (Text Edit on a Mac, or Notepad on a PC are good examples), ensuring the quotation marks are Straight then copying and pasting into Flash from there.
Here is a link to the Adobe Flash resource centre explaining this: “http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AS2LCR/Flash_10.0/help.html?content=00000008.html”
Expandable Banners
We accept expandable banners, with the following provisos:
As we fire all our banners, buttons and skyscrapers through iFrames we require iFrame busting code to allow the banner to expand out of its frame. This is a technically difficult thing to achieve and as a result we discourage clients from trying to accomplish this using technologies other than the following, which have been fully tested and offer a high standard of reliability:
Mediamind (Eyeblaster) “http://www.eyeblaster.com”
Flashtalking “http://www.flashtalking.com/”
Dart Motif “http://www.doubleclick.com/motif/”
Atlas “http://www.atlassolutions.com”
If you do not use one of the technologies recommended above it is your responsibility to provide us with all the code we need to allow your creatives to function reliably on our site. This, in normal practice, would require that you supply us with fully functioning iFrame busting code for the technology you wish to use. This code would have to be fully tested by our team, which will increase the lead-time for such campaigns.
All expanding banners must adhere to the following standards:
- Any sound must be user click activated
- Banner must contract on roll off
- Page must be restored to normal after banner contraction
CPU usage guidelines
Macromedia’s Flash Player utilises a computer’s CPU (Central Processing Unit) in handling all animation, masking, and computation contained within a Flash file. If a Flash file contains heavy amounts of mathematical computation for elements such as animation, loops, or timers, it will require a much greater percentage of CPU usage. As a result, the Flash file is forced to compete with other Flash files and other applications for CPU usage, which causes all Flash elements on the page to slow down significantly.
There are two types of usage:
Running Usage: This is the amount of CPU power utilised after a Flash file has completed its primary series of animations and is sitting “idle”.
Spike Usage: This is the amount of CPU power utilised when fluctuations, “spikes”, occur during the primary series of animations.
There are several ways to help cut down on the CPU which is controlled by mathematical-based action script. One way is to limit or eliminate looping functions in action script. Looping functions are usually associated with timers. Masking and animated masking techniques can also require a large amount of CPU resources.
One way to estimate how CPU intensive your Flash file may be is to open the “Task Manager” on a PC (control+alt+delete) and view the “Performance” tab or the “Activity Monitor” on a Mac and view the “CPU” tab. These system utilities give a graphical estimate of CPU usage. With the appropriate utility running, open your swf file in the Flash player – you may see a spike as your Flash file is animating.
A small spike may have a duration of 2 – 3 seconds. A small spike of 20%-30% is normal, although we would prefer this lower. If your CPU Usage jumps up to 50-100%, the Flash file may need revising until it uses less CPU resources.
