Flash Banners in 2014

[dsinger]

So, my company is sinking a ton of money into creating flash banners to distribute across multiple media buys in the months to come.  I was wondering if Flash was still a good platform to create banners in 2014/2015.  My understanding is that more and more devices, such as tablets and smartphones are moving away from supporting flash and more and more people are moving to a mobile/tablet preferrence. If so, this would probably diminish our ability to find optimal success?

any advice or opinions are welcome!

[TimHolmes]

Personally, I would avoid Flash for mobile in particular iOS mobile platforms as they will not display...I don't think!? I would suggest moving to HTML5 Video or animated HTML and JS, you could always still run Animated GiFs. Others may suggest otherwise.

[PaddyDisplays]

Since apple's products don't support flash you are losing a big chunk of the public from the start.  With Html 5, flash is on its way out but alot of people/ places still use it.  BUT I wouldn't develop anything in flash in this space year 2014!

[LesleyPaone]

The end of service life for Flash to be supported on Android devices was Sept 2013, no new versions are to be made and no new devices / Android versions supported. I would personally not use it. Here is a link to the adobe road map, at the bottom it tells the mobile info. http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/whitepapers/roadmap.html

[David-Kley]

Here is 2 different perspectives:
Lynda.com
Forbes.com

People like to jump on the HTML5 vs Flash bandwagon, either because it makes them sound like an expert when they don't really know, or because they have self interest in their message.

The best answer is: Look into both, and see which one allows all the features that you want to use, where you want to use it.

Question, why are you not using adsense to distribute your banners?

On a side note, if you are looking to increase clicks and traffic another option I have seen used with good traffic-driving results is Taboola.

[dsinger]

I do believe that purchasing direct advertising on specific sites, as well as GDN and other networks are both in the cards.

I was just curious about format, since I was under the impression that Flash was being phased out by most sites these days and HTML5 is coming on strong.  Most of the comments here support this theory.  Unfortunately, my company does not.  They still think there is no difference between flash, animated gif and html5 when it comes to banner creative.

They will learn soon enough, with or without my input (which is never asked for when planning)