Yahoo! upgrades its rich-media banners

by Phillip Buxton, Campaign 03-Sep-04

Yahoo! Europe is offering UK advertisers free rich-media upgrades on all banners after striking a deal with ad technology specialist Eyeblaster.

The deal, which follows a similar association between the two companies in the US, will allow advertisers on Yahoo! Europe's host of sites and pages to buy ads with file sizes of up to 100k for the same cost as a standard, 15-20k banner.

Nitzan Yaniv, Eyeblaster UK's business development director, said: "If advertisers still want to run a 15k banner, they can, but it means they have the option to upgrade at no extra cost."

Eyeblaster claims that its file compression technology allows rich-media banners to be served without affecting the loading speed of web pages.

Dominic Trigg, Yahoo! Europe director of advertising operations, explained: "Eyeblaster's technology enhances Yahoo!'s media offerings, providing a richer creative palette for our advertisers to develop more engaging advertising. Equally important to Yahoo! is to provide the best use experience on the internet, and Eyeblaster's technology ensures our users are not hampered by delays in the delivery of content."

Yoav Arnstein, vice-president of international business development at Eyeblaster, added: "Eyeblaster has a solid partnership with Yahoo! Europe. We are excited to be able to offer these new banner opportunities."

Banners of more than 100k, such as those featuring video, are still available at extra cost.