Don’t Settle for the Open Exchange

Most mobile advertisers still settle for the programmatic open exchange. It’s perceived as cheaper, easier, and more scalable. 

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But cheap has a cost. And those ideas of “easy” and “scalable” are outdated! 

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Open exchange ads are typically static and forgettable. They get slotted into the same formats (300x250, 320x50) and pushed through the pipe in massive quantities. Sure, they can be labeled as “efficient,” but they don’t make a lasting impact. 

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Mobile advertisers need to reconsider the misconception that the open exchange is the best path to scale. Instead, custom, animated creative delivers better results to scale, with fewer trade offs than you might think. 

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98% of mobile ads today flow through the open exchange. It’s the default. 

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But when you depend on the exchange, you’re accepting limitations by design, such as: 

• Formats 
• Flexibility 
• Storytelling  

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Static images are the standard, and motion is almost never part of the equation. There’s no space for a creative breakthrough, just a slot to fill. 

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Most of these ads are blurry, templated, or indistinguishable from every other unit on the page. And when everything looks the same, performance is limited. You might hit your base numbers, but you’re leaving a lot of brand affinity and sales on the table. 

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Custom creative executed through private marketplaces (PMPs) is the alternative to the open exchange, but it has a reputation problem. It’s seen as difficult to scale and painful to execute. That might have been true ten years ago, but it’s not the case today! 

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At Big Happy, we’ve built a platform that makes custom rich media easy for both publishers and advertisers. We make it easy to scale performance-driven creative. And when you upgrade creative, better outcomes follow. 

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What do we really mean by custom creative? We build animated, graphical ads. And animation unlocks a completely different part of the consumer’s brain. It’s not just that animation is “cool,” but that it’s effective. It brings stories to life in ways static banners never can. 

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Take the Pillsbury Doughboy. In a recent campaign, we transformed a static asset into a mischievous cookie thief darting across the screen. Same character. Same product. But instead of a logo in the corner of a 320x50, it's playful, nostalgic, and memorable. 

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You don’t just see the product, you feel it. That’s how you tell a story on the page! 

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This isn't just a one-off build. Big Happy is built to scale this kind of work. We built our own ad server so we could do what off-the-shelf platforms can’t. Where other creative platforms might render 100 frames, we can process 1000+ with CGI, 3D movement, and hundreds of layered animations all flowing through a custom creative pipeline. 

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Behind every 3D, animated feature is a stack of intricate production: texture mapping, 3D modeling, frame-perfect rendering, and more. It’s a complex process that we’ve made accessible, and most importantly, fast. 

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It’s easy to default to the exchange. It feels simple and scalable. 

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But winning brands aren’t built on standard performance. They’re built by exceeding expectations to create a memorable customer experience. 

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Don’t settle for blurry banners or static formats on the open exchange. Custom, animated creative scales and drives better results. All it takes is the right platform, the right execution, and a willingness to demand better. 

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At Big Happy, that’s what we’re built for. 

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Check out our website or get in touch at contact@bighappy.co.

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