Since mobile surpassed desktop internet usage in 2014, Adobe Flash has become increasingly irrelevant for advertising. Flash’s annihilation is a result of a perfect storm powered by browser Flash blockers, countless privacy issues and it’s inability to run on touchscreen devices. The writing is on the wall and written with a king size sharpie — the death of Flash is here.
Because of this, many Flash developers are faced with the challenge of transitioning their skill set to HTML5 with the possibility of losing their jobs. You know this, we know this, but how is the rest of the advertising world responding to the Flashpocalypse? With an entire industry previously reliant on a close-to-extinct skill set, we wanted to capture the reactions of real digital marketers on the streets of Manhattan attending Advertising Week.
In partnership with experimental marketing group agencyMAMA, we brought a fictional Flashpocalypse survivor to life and named him Frank. Frank is a Flash Developer that is struggling from the repercussions of mastering a soon to be obsolete skill set. Due to this massive shift within his industry, Frank’s life has shattered to pieces. It wasn’t until recently that Frank found solace in transitioning his core competency from Flash to HTML5 with Adcade’s creative platform, Epoch™.
Newly converted, Frank has vowed to save his fellow Flash-ad-builders by spreading the good word. His message of peace and opportunity comes from a newly found passion for developing multi-screen digital advertising and in his words, “No Flash developer shall go unsaved!”
In an urgent tone, Frank proclaimed to Ad Week attendees, “THE FLASHPOCALYPSE IS HERE. HAVE NO FEAR!” while comforting marketers from near and far with exciting news that the cure exists with Adcade. Attendees that sought the truth, excitedly took an Adcade Survival Guide that encouraged them to save themselves by visiting Adcade.com and downloading Epoch!
Putting this activation together was a ton of fun! Frank’s story represents how we (Adcade) foresee the impact of the Flashpocalypse on ad developers coping with an overwhelming learning curve from Flash to HTML5. This dramatization was a way for us to step out from behind our computer screens and survey our industry face-to-face by gauging a level of awareness. Here are a few takeaways we learned.
1. Developers are coding HTML5 ads mostly from scratch
Advertising Week was a perfect event for polling developers facing the current issues surrounding the death of Flash. Many of them knew Flash has become irrelevant to modern day advertising and recently committed to learning HTML5 as well as advanced CSS and Javascript to stay competitive.
Some also tried using HTML5 ad servers or were thinking about hiring a team of HTML5 developers. While these tactics may work short term, they result in massive strains on time, money and resources.
2. The majority of the public still believes Flash is alive and well
As Frank stood on the corner shouting, “The end of Flash is here!” and handing out survival guides, he received many uneducated arguments like, “Oh really? What does YouTube run on, huh? You’re kidding yourself!”
This point is completely invalid since YouTube switched to a default HTML5 player in January of 2015. One of the biggest takeaways from Frank’s activation was that there are still a lot of marketers, designers, and developers who are clueless to Flash’s imminent extinction.
3. Creative agencies are scrambling for HTML5 solution
Several knowledgeable onlookers that heard Frank’s cries were still not convinced of an existing cure to the Flashpocalypse. A few Creative Directors told Frank about how they are desperately looking for flip-switch HTML5 alternatives that do not require an extensive learning curve. They’ve tried hiring new talent and experimenting with HTML5 ad servers, but wound up disappointed from finding low-quality dev help, increased workflow inefficiencies, and additional costs from paying 4th party CPMs.
For us it was reassuring to witness the relief Frank felt explaining how Epoch is ad server agnostic, requires no additional CPM fees and utilizes Flash developers’ existing skill sets to build HTML5 digital advertising. I guess it’s safe to say that hope for present day Flash developers has been restored!
