Verizon Media Expands Successful Native Ad Format with AR

Extends Suite of Experiential Offerings to Moments Ad Format

Verizon Media announced that it is extending its experiential and extended reality (XR) offerings to include new augmented reality (AR) features for one of its most engaging and valued ad formats, Moments, a premium, full-screen native format that drives consumer relevance and engagement through commerce, utility and content. The rollout follows the company’s successful debut of AR on Yahoo Mail, seeing unprecedented user engagement, including average dwell times over 60 seconds.

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Native advertising continues to explode, with US advertisers spending almost $44 billion on it in 2019, according to eMarketer. With native on the rise, Verizon Media is leading through innovation to offer advertisers powerful new options in its trusted content ecosystem. Launched in 2017, Moments is a premium full-screen native advertising canvas that scales across Verizon Media’s premium and brand safe mobile apps and web properties. With today’s announcement, Verizon Media is extending its AR capabilities to its native Moments format, delivering value to both advertisers and consumers.

With the new AR features, advertisers can now allow consumers to interact with, evaluate and test multiple products in their present 3D environment through their smartphone camera and screen. Users have complete control of each product’s digital AR experience, adjusting by size and position. Additionally, brands now have the option of flipping the AR experience to a smartphone’s front-facing camera, unlocking new engagement opportunities with a collection of Face Features. Together, the new functionality offers greater AR value at premium scale. 

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“Advertisers benefit from running AR campaigns against high-quality, trusted and contextual media,” said Jeff Lucas, Head of North American Sales and Global Client Solutions at Verizon Media. “By bringing together AR and our premium, relevant and trusted inventory, we can power a new level of utility for the user and performance for the advertiser. Moments is a great example of that. It helps brands invite users in and meaningfully connect with them in a much deeper way.”

At Verizon Media, brands can activate AR in multiple ways, from ad formats to editorial to branded content. For extended reality (XR) experiences, whether AR or VR, Verizon Media combines high-quality 3D artistry, powered by RYOT Studio, Verizon Media’s award-winning content studio and innovation lab, with targetable premium ad scale. Together, these capabilities create a canvas of endless possibilities at the scale of Verizon Media’s Yahoo apps and beyond. Verizon’s 5G advantage also uniquely positions the company as a leader in AR experiences for today and into the future.

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