Breadcrumbs

Banners

The Banners content type in Activator lets you create HTML banners — both animated and static — designed for distribution to ad platforms. A Banner targets multiple ad viewports (e.g. 300×250, 300×600, 728×90) from a single document, with each viewport rendered from its own HTML source.

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Banners are not enabled by default. This content type is activated per customer configuration. Contact your Anthill administrator if you need Banners enabled for your account.

How Banners Differ from Other Channels

Banners share the same authoring principles as Activator's other channels — content is built visually using layouts from a Design System, then compiled and published to the connected DAM. The key differences are structural:

  • Multi-viewport by design. A single Banner document targets several viewports at once. Each viewport — for example 300×250, 300×600, 728×90 — is stored as its own rendition on the document with its own HTML source, so styling, media, and copy can be tuned for that specific size without compromising across them all.

  • Scene-based composition. Banner content is composed of scenes that play in sequence as the banner animates. Scenes are managed through the new Scene Manager, where it’s possible to control the scenes in the viewports.

  • Animated and static. Banner viewports can be rendered as either animated (with motion) or static (without JavaScript) versions. Both can be carried in the same document and published together.

  • Built on Fusion 3 Core. Banners run on the new Fusion 3 Core — a lighter foundation than the Fusion library used by other channels, designed to fit within the file-size limits of ad platforms.

Building a Banner

Banners are built in the Activator editor using a multi-iframe canvas that renders every configured viewport side-by-side. Only one viewport is in focus and editable at a time, while the others stay visible for context. The high-level flow:

  1. Create the banner. Choose a Design System and select the viewports the banner should target.

  2. Add scenes. Use the Scene Manager to add the scenes that will play in sequence.

  3. Drop in layouts per viewport. For each viewport, drop in the pre-coded layouts from the Design System and adjust content, media, and styling for that specific size.

  4. Switch between animated and static. The Scene Manager allows toggling between the animated and static representations of the banner during editing.

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For 3.6, banner-ready layouts are added to a Design System via source upload by Anthill. In-Design-System layout authoring will come in a future release.

Publishing a Banner

Banner publishing produces a different output package from other channels. On publish, Activator:

  • compiles a distribution package per viewport, bundled together for delivery to the connected DAM

  • records an MP4 video preview for each animated viewport

  • captures an image for each static viewport

  • in the future it will also generate a MLR report that walks every scene of every viewport in a single review-ready PDF

The publishing wizard lets you choose which visual representation acts as the viewable rendition on the connected DAM and whether video previews should be generated as part of the publish run.

Like Slides and Briefs, Banners go through the MLR approval workflow before they are distributed.