Expedia Flash banner ads
Size: 16 Flash banner ads for each of 4 different destinations
My professional status: contractor at Badger Communications
Website client: Expedia
Dates: March 2009
Categories: Project manager, Flash, Small sites
Brief: initially to fix a single Flash banner ad by replacing bitmaps with vector elements - and then to build a series of Flash banner ads which would be used on various large New Zealand and Australian websites. Four different international destinations were being advertised, with eight banners of different dimensions for each destination. Each set of banners was replicated for both the New Zealand and Australian markets, with a different Expedia logo for each. There were 64 banners in total.
Looks lovely Ali. All sent off to Aus. Many thanks.
Matthew Masters, Company Owner, Badger Communications
My responsibilities included:
- Replacement of all bitmap elements with vector graphics in the first banner supplied by Badger Communications
- Creation of a full set of eight banner ads of different dimensions in Flash, based on the initial one supplied - 120x60, 160x600, 300x125, 300x250, 300x600, 468x60, 728x90, 768x1280
- Replication of this first set of eight New Zealand banners, replacing the Expedia.co.nz logo with one for Expedia.com.au - as the Australian logo was smaller, this required some tweaking of the position of various elements within each banner
- Using the first set of 16 banners to the first destination (Hawaii) as a basis for the creation of three further sets of 16 banners to other international destinations - London, San Francisco and Singapore
- Close monitoring of the progress of each banner through the approval process - initially to Badger Communications in Auckland and then to the client in Australia - to ensure that all banners for each set had been completed, and that any alterations were carried out immediately and sent back for re-approval
- Maintaining open lines of communication with Badger Communications at all times, to ensure that all the client's requests for alterations had been completed and that I was on the right track in terms of the animations I was creating
- I used four-screen storyboards from Badger Communications as a basis for my animations on two or three dimensional variations for each destination, and with the rest of the banners in each set I was left to my own devices, working out the timing, positioning and animations for each banner myself
- ActionScripting for each ad (to allow a fixed number of loops, clickthrough counts and direct links), following the specific requirements for online publications.
This was a telecommuting contract, as Badger Communications is based in Auckland, and I'm based in Wellington. The client (Expedia) is based in Australia. It was great fun - the vector graphics provided by the design team at Badger Communications were beautifully constructed, and I really enjoyed being given free rein with many of the banner variations in terms of how I chose to arrange the timing, positioning and animations of each banner.
The timing was tight - banners needed to be completed very quickly and delivered to the client asap, so we did quite a few late nights and weekends to get it all done. Keeping track of all the banners was also extremely important - with so many variations and sets, and with a two-stage approval process via Badger Communications in Auckland and then the client in Australia - I needed to ensure that all banners were clearly labelled and kept in separate folders (and folders within folders) so that I knew at a glance which banners had been completed, submitted for approval, returned for tweaking, re-submitted and signed off.