Pushing all the wrong buttons

You recently highlighted the new IAB rules set down to enhance the user experience of online video streaming ads, which specify features such as a play button, stop, fast-forward and rewind (MW October 7).

I was shocked, then, when using Hotmail – a property of industry leader MSN – recently, to have a video streamed to me as if it was just another bad pop-up. It offered no user-enhancing capabilities, just an option to replay at the end of the video – a function solely useful for the advertiser.

Your article says “the online industry has thrown its weight behind the guidelines”. It seems appalling, then, that two online heavyweights – MSN and Starcom, both IAB members – can be so hypocritical. As usual, it is a case of “do as I say, not as I do”.

Leading agencies aren’t already there: they live in a blinkered world where they are gods and need not research the market to find alternatives.

Paul Bowen

Goallover

London N1