Hasta La Creative!

The New York Times Idea Lab, a 10-person outfit inside the company that partly applies editorial innovations to new online ad products, is introducing new standardized but interactive ad units for its iPad app, the company said Monday.

One ad unit, for example, enables readers to download media from the iTunes store within the ad. Another unit, which The Times said was inspired by panoramas in its editorial coverage, offers a 360-degree panorama of a retail store. It’s all part of a broader effort, which the paper is calling TimesAction, to simplify the creation and purchase of rich-media ads in its iPad app, and to allow advertisers to bring many of their ads over from its website to the app.

“We want to bring some of the same interactive and engaging qualities of the best web advertising around into a mobile environment,” said Todd Haskell, group VP-advertising at The Times. Previously, most ads that ran on the Times website — particularly the rich media units — could not run on the tablet, according to Mr. Haskell. Translating them for tablets was costly and time consuming.

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