When Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) kicked off iAds on the iPad last week with a high-end, whizzy creative for the new Tron Legacy film, we wrote, “Over time, as these kinds of in-app ads become as plain vanilla as any TV commercial, Apple will probably have to lower the bar for entry. And it will probably loosen its grip a bit on creative control.” Little did we know how quickly that bar would get lowered: today the company announced iAd Producer — an app that lets regular developers create iAds too.
“iAd Producer automatically manages the HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript behind your iAd to make creating beautiful, motion-rich iAd content as easy as point and click,” Apple writes.
The application takes the advertising creator through the steps needed to add different elements to an iAd for specific devices, including various templates for the advert, and lets users “test drive” their creations before submitting them to the iAd Network. The app is free to download.
iAd Producer is a sign of how Apple hopes to open up and simplify the iAd network to ramp up inventory.
The closed nature of the iAd system had been seen as one of the potential stumbling blocks for the service. Other issues have included the high price to buy into the platform — starting at $1 million — and the fact that advertisers needed to cede some creative control to Apple. While we don’t know how and if iAd Producer will signal a new kind of pricing structure for the network, this will at least be a route to creating significantly more content for Apple’s own devices.
In a recent forecast of mobile advertising in the U.S. from IDC, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) accounted for 59 percent of all mobile advertising revenue, with Apple a distant second with just an 8.4 percent share, in a market worth $877 million overall.
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