4 April 2005 — DARMSTADT, Germany and ZURICH, Switzerland — The technical committees of the AdsML Consortium, an international initiative to bring open standards for e-commerce to the advertising industry, and the International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress (CIP4) organization, an international standards development association established in Switzerland, have agreed to a formal demarcation between standards development for advertising e-commerce and standards for print advertising production workflow. Representatives of the two organizations met successively in Heidelberg, Germany, and Antwerp, Belgium, recently, to clarify the printing workflow areas their specifications address and to coordinate efforts so that both CIP4’s Job Definition Format (JDF) specification and the AdsML Framework specifications developed by the AdsML Consortium are compatible. Enhancements planned; test implementations start The two groups agreed that the AdsML Consortium’s specifications will govern communications between the advertiser and the publisher, including the description of an ad’s placement in the page layout of a print publication, while CIP4’s specifications will govern the flow of information and materials related to the physical production and distribution of the publication. Developers have identified connection points between the two suites of standards and have agreed that the interfaces between them must be seamless. With this agreement in place and responsibilities defined, test implementations of the AdsML and JDF standards in relation to print advertising can begin. In addition, CIP4 will add specific features to JDF 1.3, the next version of the specification, to facilitate advertising production. AdsML Framework Release 3 is due for release in October 2005 at IfraExpo in Germany. How it will work The AdsML Framework standard, which carries business information related to the booking of an ad as well as the ad content and attendant placement and reproduction instructions, facilitates ad trafficking up to the point where the ad enters the production workflow. Advertisers and publishers will use AdsML Framework-compliant systems and processes for ordering and submitting ads, thereby shortening deadlines for ad submissions, which benefits both advertisers and publishers. Once an ad is placed on the page in a JDF 1.3-enabled system, the information about the proper reproduction of the ad — conveyed within the data transmitted under AdsML Framework guidelines and augmented by the publisher — will become part of the JDF data stream. This digital hand off of information will reduce errors and fully automate the steps leading to high quality reproduction of advertisements. JDF 1.3 implementations will provide the added ability to track individual ads throughout the production process. This capability will eventually enable multiple versions of ads to be tracked individually through to distribution. Electronic tearsheets can then be created with a near-perfect level of accuracy, streamlining the billing process. At this point the standards can dove-tail again: AdsML may carry the e-tearsheets and invoices from the publisher back to the originating agency or advertiser, bringing the process full circle.