SIMID is a container that enables communication between the player and any ad creative. Because the ad creative is securely enclosed in the SIMID container, none of its code can access the player or the environment where the player is executed. And with the communication SIMID enables, the ad creative can request certain player operations based on ad interactions.
The latest iteration of SIMID (v1.2) adds support for responsive ads by signaling a -1 to report “unknown size.” It also provides instruction on how to execute and “L-shaped” ad space, also called “squeeze-backs. This ability always existed in SIMID and this version simply provides the explicit instructions to do so. To increase security, v1.2 requires that session IDs be cryptographically secure. And finally, handling deep links—links that navigate to an app or an app store in a device—requires some set-up. This version provides some information on that process.
As described in our blog post “Simplifying Video Ad Delivery”, the Digital Video Technical Working Group is replacing VPAID (Video Player-Ad Interface Definition) with a set of more focused standards – Open Measurement Interface Definition (OMID) for measurement/verification and Secure Interactive Media Interface Definition (SIMID) for interactivity.
SIMID was born from the desire to support interactive ads in a safe and secure environment for publishers and also to enable better cross-platform support by supporting mobile, SSAI and OTT devices. A main tenet of SIMID is the separation of the interactive layer from the media asset – both being delivered by VAST 4.x. This clear separation allows publisher players to be in control of their streams and enables use cases such as server-side ad insertion (SSAI), as well as live streaming.
More information about the technical details of SIMID, differences between SIMID and VPAID as well as some sample code can be found on the SIMID website at – https://github.com/InteractiveAdvertisingBureau/SIMID.