Unicast Releases Unicast Ad Kit 4.0

Creative Authoring Technology Empowers Publishers, Advertisers, and Agencies with Ability to Build Rich Media and Video Ads Using the Latest Adobe Flash Features

March 3, 2010 -- Unicast, a leader in online interactive rich media and video advertising management and services solutions for the world’s top publishers, brands and agencies, today announced the release of Unicast Ad Kit 4.0 with full support for Adobe® Flash® CS3 and CS4 Professional software, enabling publishers, advertisers, and agencies to build, preview, test, and upload Unicast rich media and video ads using the latest Adobe Flash features.

“We designed the new version of the Unicast Ad Kit with both Flash designers and developers in mind – coders can leverage our well-documented API, while designers can use components to get the same job done,” said Michael Tuminello, Director of Product from Unicast.

“By providing an end-to-end workflow within the Adobe Flash environment, our customers can focus on being creative without having to concern themselves with any ad server or campaign-trafficking details. Top publishers, news sites, leading social networking sites, the four major broadcast networks, and key agencies require this type of product evolution to streamline business processes.”

The new Unicast Ad Kit allows users to easily and efficiently create compelling online advertising that delivers results for advertisers, agencies and web publishers. Features include:
- Drag-and-Drop Video Controls– add rewind, seek, full-screen toggle, HD, and other video controls to video ads without writing any code.

- QA / Preview Environment – the Ad Kit provides standard interactive event and video tracking that can be verified in an intuitive QA and preview environment.

- AS2 and AS3 API – the Ad Kit's well-documented AS2 and AS3 API supports rich interactive functionality with a readily-extensible API to support event tracking and a wide range of interactive features.

- Complete Ad Format Suite – the Ad Kit supports traditional IAB ad formats, synchronized and roadblock ad experiences and as well as OPA pushdown formats, transitional formats, and more.

- Twitter, Social Networking, Widgets, and other interactive feature components – build ads that tap into the latest trends in interactive advertising via additional drag-and-drop components.

Unicast releases its new Ad Kit 4.0 to the general interactive market after successfully completing a beta program that included a broad mix of creative designers and developers from large and small creative shops and web publishers from the US, European, and Brazilian markets. During the beta period, Unicast collected extensive user feedback directly and via independent moderators to ensure the Ad Kit meets real-world production needs.

“We decided to join the Unicast Ad Kit Beta program to take advantage of turn-key templates that enable much of the custom ad formats running on our family of sites,” noted Michael Hannon, Vice President, Advertising Operations for NBC Local Integrated Media. “Having used the beta software successfully to reduce turnaround times and to improve quality KPI, we are excited to leverage the newest features and workflows available in the latest Unicast Ad Kit release.”

“Our advertising and web publishing users will appreciate the streamlined workflow and the many interactive features available in our new Ad Kit,” said Robert Molchon, Vice President of Engineering for Unicast. “With the added support of third-party products such as Twitter, we enable cutting-edge interactivity without the typically steep learning curve, addressing specific pain points for our customers — allowing them to work more efficiently and effectively to deliver the richest interactive content available.”

Source: Unicast