Yahoo — First VR Ad Formats
The problem
VR had no advertising formats. Nobody knew what an ad inside a headset should even be.
The approach
Lead an innovation team to build the formats first and define the category by shipping it.
What was built
Rich-media formats on Yahoo's internal AdInterax platform with mobile delivery via Celtra; Gavin led the Innovation team as Senior Design Manager, Ad Creative Technology.
The outcome
Yahoo's first VR ad formats. Gavin represented the work publicly at IVRPA Québec 2016 in a session titled 'Bridging the VR Advertising Gap.'
Over a decade at Yahoo (April 2007–August 2017), Gavin’s official title progressed from Visual Designer II through Visual Designer III to Senior Design Manager, Ad Creative Technology (confirmed by primary-source Yahoo performance-review documents). He built rich-media ad formats — video ads, expandables, floaters, animated wallpapers, micro-sites, Yahoo Mail ads — on Yahoo’s internal AdInterax platform, with mobile delivery via Celtra, and produced the company’s first Tumblr sponsored-post templates and advertorial pages.
His strongest independent credit from this era: the IVRPA Québec 2016 conference program lists a session titled “Bridging the VR Advertising Gap,” with speakers “Andrew Balfour, Global Creative Innovation Lead and Gavin Farrell, Sr. Design Manager” — on how Yahoo was bridging the gap for advertisers with 360 image and video technology. Yahoo was a listed conference partner. This confirms, independently and by name, that Gavin was the person publicly representing Yahoo’s VR/360 advertising work in 2016 — leading the interactive-advertising Innovation team that built the company’s first VR ad formats.
Led Yahoo's interactive advertising Innovation team; spearheaded its first VR ad formats.