How can I create a VAST ad tag that displays an HTML page within the video area after an ad is played?

Question

How can I create a linear ad, followed by an html page that stays until it is closed? A use case is showing a video ad for a smartphone app, then after the ad showing a picture of the app with an "install" button that can be clicked, taking the user to the app store. Or, they can press a "close" button, and the video player can continue playing the next video.

As I understand, linear ads are video ads that are played as pre-, mid-, or post-roll. Non-linear ads are displayed over the original video as banner images. Companion ads display HTML or images over a different part of a web page or view within a smartphone app. None of these are exactly what I want, which is to display a companion-like ad over the entirety of the video player after a linear ad (and leaving it displayed until the user leaves.)

Is this possible, and if so, what would the VAST tag look like?

Answer 1

There are different ways you could do this and the approach may be different with different players.

It will also depend on whether your ads are inserted on the client side or the server side, and whether the same ad is used for all viewers or you target different ads for different viewers.

An example high level walkthrough might be (using client side ad insertion):

• Play the man video
• Detect that an ad break is near and pre-fetch the ad
• Stop main video at ad break (mid roll example)
• Play the ad
• Detect the end of the ad and stop player
• Overlay HTML company ad over the display area of the video
• If user dismisses ad, then play main video again from the point where it stopped
• If user click on action on company ad then do whatever the action says - e.g. download app

VAST is a request and response protocol - whether server side or client side ad insertion is being used, the basic flow is that something, either the client side video player or the server side 'ad stitcher' sends a VAST request for an ad at the appropriate point and it receives back the VAST response.

For client side, the player will do whatever the response says, e.g. play an ad video, display a companion ad etc. For server side the ad stitcher does the work, for example adding the ad into the stream that is then sent to the player in the client.

If user interaction is required to extend an ad or stop the play etc, there will always be a client side element to the solution.

There are some diagrams which try to describe this in the VAST v4.0 spec, section 1.1 'VAST Ad Serving and Tracking'. Unfortunately, it looks like the bullet numbering might have gone amiss for one of the diagrams which makes it a little confusing - if you add or imagine that the first block of text under the diagram is bullet umber one in the extract below, then I think it is easier to understand: