There used to be a running joke at DoubleClick that the company should hire a VP of widget technology. “It’d be a short-lived career,” VP of Advertiser Products Ari Paparo told me in an interview last August. He uttered the somewhat mocking remark by way of acknowledging that ever more advertisers were asking for widget capabilities.
Six months later DoubleClick is giving them what they want. The Google-owned firm today announced support for widget (i.e. “embeddable”) ads. The function will reside within DART for Advertisers, where agencies will be able to easily add “virality” to their rich media campaigns.
Gigya is supporting the ad sharing component through its Wildfire technology, which can process widget installs on 50 social media platforms, including social networks, blogs and bookmarking services.
The main value DoubleClick can bring to the widget advertising phenomenon is standardized reporting. DFA customers will be able to obtain metrics on the number of impressions, interactions, viral “grabs” for each of the social networks. That may eventually help marketers gauge the conversion impact of all that viral sharing.