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Mar-11-2009In-your-face Web ad formats popping up all over(topic overview)
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The main goal is to engage readers more fully, and in the process allow online publishers to charge advertisers more. Not least, the initiative offers an alternative to the increasing encroachment of cheap ads served on their sites by advertising networks, which many premium sites think are devaluing their ad space. The three new ad units are all bigger than standard display ads, and potentially they'll be the only ad on the first screen. They include a "Fixed Panel" that's 336 pixels wide and 860 pixels tall, and scrolls to the top and bottom of a page as the user scrolls; an "XXL Box" that's 468 by 648 pixels, featuring the ability to embed video; and a huge 970-by-418-pixel "Pushdown" ad that opens up and then rolls up to the top of the page. The publishers taking part include a wide variety of sites--including this one--run by outfits such as BusinessWeek ( MHP ), The New York Times ( NYT ), Time ( TWX ), Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia ( MSO ), USA Today ( GCI ), and others, accounting in total for two-thirds of the U.S. Internet audience. They've each committed to offer at least one of the ad formats by July. The idea is to give more room for creativity to brand marketers--who, like the publishers, fret that the Web isn't providing them the ability to get a message across that's anything near as engaging as television or even print ads. "A disproportionate amount of money is spent on direct-response ads," such as Google ( GOOG ) search ads and "click-here" pitches for credit reports or dating sites, says Martin A. Nisenholtz, senior vice-president for digital operations at the New York Times Co. "The Web should be getting more branding dollars." [1] NEW YORK Faced with a deepening recession and declining display ad rates, some of the top Web publishers are countering with a new offer: bigger ads. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, ESPN and over a dozen more of the Web's most-trafficked sites that belong to the Online Publishers Association have agreed to run three new ad units that they hope will lure brand advertising dollars. The new units are: • The fixed panel, a 336-by-860-pixel banner that is wider than the standard skyscraper and follows users as they scroll down the page.[2]
NEW YORK, March 10 /PRNewswire/ -- The Online Publishers Association (OPA) announced today a new initiative designed to help stimulate a renaissance of creative advertising on the Internet that meets the needs of marketers by better integrating their messages into the fabric of the Web. As part of the announcement, a broad group of its members will implement new interactive, display advertising units across their sites. Starting in July, these new units will be available only through the publishers' direct sales teams. "Members of the OPA are offering a set of new principles and unique display advertising units to continue to foster innovation and leverage an environment that research has proven delivers better results for advertisers," said Pam Horan, president of OPA. "Agencies are looking for new ways to integrate their clients' brand experiences with more interactivity on the page, and these new units provide a way for them to accomplish this while capitalizing on the halo effect of the high-quality media brands."[3]
The Online Publishers Association (OPA), following closely in the footsteps of the IAB, is hoping to spark a creative revolution of sorts in online display advertising. To that end, a number of the OPA's high-profile members will introduce three newer, bigger, and more interactive ad units this summer.[4]
As of July, major online publishers including The New York Times, FOXNews, Time Inc. and The Wall Street Journal Digital Network will begin using the proposed new OPA ad units. The formats are both bigger and more interactive, allowing advertisers to get more creative with presentation and consumers to be more engaged.[5] The initial participating OPA members are: BabyCenter, Bizjournals, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, CBS Interactive, CNN, Conde Nast Digital, Discovery Communications, ESPN, Forbes.com, FOXNews Digital, IDG, iVillage Network, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Meredith Interactive, msnbc.com, MTV Networks, NBC Universal, New York Media, The New York Times, Reed Business Information, Reuters, Time Inc., USA Today, Wall Street Journal Digital Network and Weather.com, with more OPA members to be announced. In January, these publishers had a combined, unduplicated reach of 108.3 million visitors, or 66 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience. This group of sites also represents 8.17 billion total minutes of time spent during the month (according to Nielsen Online).[3]
Twenty-seven top Internet publishers -- including the New York Times, CNN, CBS Interactive, ESPN and the Wall Street Journal -- say they'll try the supersize ads in an attempt to get the attention of Web surfers who have learned to ignore banners. The websites, which collectively reach two-thirds of the U.S. Internet audience, must walk a fine line so they don't bug visitors so much that they stop returning. "Studies show we ignore banner ads," said Jose Castillo, a new media consultant in Johnson City, Tenn. "Making them bigger and more intrusive won't work. We will tune those out as well."[6]
Web surfers have learned to ignore banner ads. Eye-tracking studies show that most of us don't even look at them. That's why a group of 27 major online publishers including The New York Times, IDG (see disclosure below), Fox News and MSNBC have agreed to test three new ad formats.[7] The new formats are being launched just as more traditional banner ads are dropping in popularity. One reason is that advertisers have less to spend and they know banners aren't getting results and another reason is that the web is continuing to expand, creating ever more inventory for these ads. There are both fewer buyers and more sellers of online ad space than in past years. The publishers involved in this initiative, including national newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, magazines like Forbes and Cond'' Nast and multimedia sites like MTV Networks and ESPN are hoping these new ad formats will strike a balance in getting more reader attention without driving readers away.[8] The new formats are meant to reduce clutter while getting more directly into the reader's face in contrast to banner ads, which are often plastered across web pages but still ignored by readers. Publishers are trying to make themselves more desirable to large advertisers companies like Coke, Pizza Hut and Proctor & Gamble who want to sell their mass-market products to the generic consumer. These brands aren't looking so much for direct online purchases or other actions, like what Google search ads promise; rather they want to tell users to try, say, a new type of Coke at the grocery store.[8] "I don't think the answer is in-your-face ads." The publishers say they think the new formats will provide a canvas on which advertisers can be more creative. They certainly don't intend to turn off Web surfers. "The visitor says whether they want to see the whole ad," said Pam Horan, president of the Online Publishers Assn. "If the consumer wants to engage, it will open to double the page.[6] The Online Publishers Assn. launches supersize ads in an attempt to reach surfers who ignore banners. They're bigger, they're bolder, and soon they'll be covering up large swaths of some of your favorite Web pages. The Online Publishers Assn. on Tuesday released several new in-your-face advertising formats designed to be both more obtrusive and interactive.[6]
Time will tell. Perhaps the larger questions surround whether advertisers and agencies will embrace the new formats and be willing to pay the premium price that will doubtless be attached to them. As for the publishers, bigger, splashier, more interactive ad units carry with them the potential for increased ROI -- but also bear with them a risk of increased clutter. Will the pages featuring these new units be stripped of other banners, boxes, text links and AdSense messaging? Guess we'll find out this summer.[4] The Pushdown (recommended dimension is 970 wide x 418 tall), which opens to display the advertisement and then rolls up to the top of the page. The formats they've agreed on all have one trait in common: they are much bigger and more attention-grabbing than the banner, which is despised by publishers, advertisers and readers alike as an ad unit.[9]
Among the new units being debuted are: the "fixed panel," a 336 x 860 panel that looks embedded into the page and scrolls to the top and bottom of the page as the user scrolls; the "XXL Box," which is 468 x 648 and allows users to actually turn "pages" and watch video; and the "pushdown," which is 970 x 428 which opens to display a nearly full-page ad and then rolls up to the top of the page.[10]
When a user opens a new page, the pushdown ad expands downward, then rolls up to the top of the page. The second new format is the "fixed panel," a sort of side banner that scrolls with you as you read up and down a web page all 336 wide and 860 tall pixels of it.[8] Pushdowns open to display a larger ad, while the new 'fixed panel' format features ads that look like part of the page but scroll up and down as the user does and the 'XXL box' lets users turn pages within the ad.[6]
Horan said the hope is that the larger ads will actually lead to fewer units per page and less clutter. More than two dozen OPA members have agreed to debut at least one of the new ad units on their site by July 1. Among those participating are ESPN, The New York Times, MTV Universal, and Condé Nast Digital. OPA is also devising a new series of metrics to measure the branding impact of display advertising rather than just clicks and impressions, though they will not be debuted for at least a few months.[10] The new formats are a clear shot across the bow of ad networks. Many of these middlemen, which serve as brokers between advertisers and Web sites, are focused on delivering those direct-response ads by the ton. The ad units will be available only through the direct sales forces of OPA members, which don't include ad networks and most portals such as Yahoo ( YHOO ). Ultimately advertisers and agencies will be able to run these or similar ads anywhere if they see they're getting results.[1] Advertising networks are able to sell ads efficiently across any number of sites without having to go through the publishers. Standard ad units for banners may have made it easier for third parties to run campaigns for advertisers in lieu of these publishers which some publishers believe has costs them money but standards also allow advertisers to more easily coordinate widespread ad campaigns. Of course, if these formats prove popular, you can bet advertising networks and agencies will look to run similar formats across the web.[8]
The new formats raise questions. The industry organization for developing ad format standards, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, is open to adopting these new formats, according to BusinessWeek, but so far the OPA appears intent on keeping the formats to just its members. It wants to differentiate what it views as higher-quality content from the rest of the web, and use these ads to charge a premium.[8] The new ad units, which go live in July, shall operate outside industry specifications set by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. "As we talk to the agency community, one of the things we hear is they need new creative ways to connect with our audiences on the page," said President Pam Horan of the OPA. "These ad units are providing a new palette for them to connect with the audience."[11] The Online Publisher's Association is hoping to promote creativity in digital advertising with a host of new ad units that will expand the interactive options available to marketers.[10] The third format is the "XXL Box," a 468 x 648 window that includes video and other interactive elements to get reader attention (as pictured, apparently on ESPN.com, above). The 27 publishers have all agreed to use at least one of these three new ad formats by July 1 of this year. They agreed to these formats under the auspices of a publishing trade organization called the Online Publishers Association.[8] On Mar. 10, the Online Publishers Assn. (OPA) is announcing a trio of new display-ad formats that it hopes will spark more creative use of the Web's mainstay ads.[1]
"As consumers and advertisers increasingly turn to digital media, we must create formats and programs that support and sustain the differentiating aspects of our businesses," said Martin A. Nisenholtz, founding chairman of the OPA, and senior vice president, digital operations, The New York Times Company. "Agencies must be given the tools to build brands on the Web and publishers must provide the formats for their advertisers to thrive, while balancing the needs of their users."[3] Far be it for me to proselytize but part of the issue here is making the content valuable to marketers beyond the broad demographics of a particular website. Contextual ads are one way of doing this. Another idea is finding unique ways to bring sponsored responses to searches and suggestions in-site, without making for an '''over-marketed''' experience for users. Perhaps another approach might be what The Guardian is doing in the UK. ''Recognizing that their content is their most valuable resource they are opening up their content API to developers to do with what they will ''' radical stuff. While this probably won'''t work for smaller publishers, for large long-lived institutions with deep archives and brand equity like the Guardian or the New York Times, this is a leg up on expanding and controlling the monetization of their content and a first step in coming to grips with another source of revenue drainage ''' content aggregators like The Huffington Post. Questions or comments? Feel free to leave them here or check out Reprise Media folks on Twitter.[12]
COMPOUND FACTIONS -- NielsenConnect, the new compound brand name launched late last year by the Nielsen Co., and headed by former Madison Avenue "iconoclast" Jon Mandel, has "heard from clients, agencies and media sellers about being stodgy and slow to respond to changes in the marketplace," Nielsen-owned trade magazine Mediaweek reported this week. Nielsen's response is to have its disparate operating units work more closely together to provide more integrated client solutions, and to sell more Nielsen stuff in the process. To illustrate the new corporate synergy, NielsenConnect placed the story exclusively in Mediaweek, after it was passed up by both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The release, er story, reveals five new compound words - NielsenCombine, NielsenConnections, NielsenTrend, NielsenHealth, and NielsenLinx - representing various new products and services, that are actually repackaged combinations of old products and services, but with much higher price tags and with no spaces between their names. "This is only the beginning," Mandel said in a letter to clients outlining the products.[13]
Based on the pixel size of XXL unit, I guess no one is designing for 800 x 600 resolution monitors anymore. Why is the end-game for these new ad units going to be any different from where we are with banners today? Users will be trained to avert their eyes and cursors from anything that wastes their time (which is often all paid content). Today its an aversion to banners. In the future it will be an aversion to the XXL unit and it's time-sucking brethren. [9] Ed: Finally, a sensible move by traditional publishers to innovate with change. - Banners did not serve advertisers well. It's time to abandon them. - Rich interaction is the future of online advertising - joint standardization allows users to acclimate to change with the least noise. - Publishers cannot lay back and let Google commoditize online ads.[9]
Not to defend banner ads but for page surfaces that don'''t serve any navigation purpose and with little text, what did you expect? Lingering? Yes, I agree that banners are often ignored and compared to other forms of online advertising such as search ads are rarely clicked. The solution these folks are embracing, what I like to call Super Banners,'' is to make the surface bigger, louder, flashier and harder to ignore.[12] Google has perfected ads that appear next to search results and pay based on actions users take. For many types of advertisers, this easily measurable method of seeing results has proven much more worthwhile than banners. Social networks like Facebook and MySpace are developing ways to target ads based on their users' interests, activities and friend relationships.[8] Ad networks like Federated Media sell industry-specific ads for niche sites like VentureBeat. Where these other advertising innovators are focused on targeted ads and audiences, these OPA advertisers may have hit on a better way to satisfy brands' demands for more attention from the masses.[8]
I hate to burst advertisers bubble but the 'You will return to the site in 30' message always makes me think the same thing -- 'Great. I know exactly how much time to ignore this tab. What else can I do in 30 seconds? Switch to a different tab on my browser? Walk to the fridge?' If this is what they came up with when they put their heads together, it doesn't seem like much will change except there will be new standard ad sizes to despise.[9]
Or, roughly translated: The new online ad formats are supposed to work because there will be fewer of them, they will be larger, they theoretically could command a higher fee for advertisers who buy the space, and more people will buy stuff because of them.[14] Horan disputed the notion that the new focus on providing a larger canvas to advertisers would not come at the expense of users. Bigger ads could mean fewer on the page, she pointed out. "We're trying to potentially reduce the clutter on the page," she said.[2]
The proliferation of ad networks and the abundance of impressions have driven down ad prices. The hope is that these larger ads, which will be sold only through publisher sales forces, are one way to restore value to ad inventory, said Mike Fogarty, group publisher at Babycenter, which signed on to run the new units. "We need to make sure we're not just competing in the same way as other ad platforms and networks are for ad dollars," he said.[2] Hoping to keep the dampening effects of the recession at bay, top web publishers have committed to develop three new ad units all markedly larger, and potentially more invasive, than existing ad offerings.[11] Overall, it is nice to see large publishers toying with new ways in to increase engagement. I guess this recession will help weed out those ineffective ad units and publisher layouts, which is long overdue. On the agency/creative side of things, we're asking designers/developers how they feel about this news over at our blog -- http://bannerflow.com/blog/?p=21.[9]
"Pricing for the new ad units would be determined individually by OPA members.[10] The OPA, which consists of over a dozen of the most-trafficked online content sites, represents 108 million monthly users. Earlier this month, Google began exploring expandable ad units for AdSense and AdWords.[11] The participating OPA sites will make the units available in July. The push comes as big-name publishers struggle against the commoditization of online advertising that's slowing revenue growth in their digital operations.[2] Hot on the heels of Google's launch of expandable display advertising, comes news from the Online Publishers Association that they are introducing a trio of new advertising units in the hope of boosting both creativity and revenue.[5] Both the OPA and the IAB have recently called for a renewed infusion of creativity in online display advertising in an effort to move away from the click metrics associated with direct marketing and into the perhaps murkier realm of metrics such as "branding" and "engagement." These new formats are a start, and given the vast consumer reach of the publishers involved, there's a fertile testing ground and plenty of eyeballs out there.[4] "The OPA's work in developing new formats to showcase the power and the beauty of great, creative display advertising is a welcome reminder to all that the Web is good for more than direct response."[5]
A press release by the OPA, which promises "a renaissance of creative advertising on the Internet," says that the group of 27 will each offer at least one of the new units by July 1.[7] Introduce a measurement to capture impact : Develop a metric that emphasizes the impact creative advertising can have on Web viewers while preserving the Internet's well-established ability to engender response. Enhance interactivity to build user engagement with brands : Offer a broad range of interactivity built into units such as video players, lead capture and advertiser content that will be sharable and have permalinks to spotlight and encourage the best in creativity, while weaving the advertisements deeper into the social fabric of the Web.[3] Each of the units will also contain a button allowing users to e-mail the ads to others, which Horan said was a function necessary to bringing advertising into the same class as other Internet content. "We're trying to inspire a creative renaissance, and we want consumers to be able to do what they do on other platforms, which is to share content," she said.[10]
Provide a greater share of voice for the advertiser: Increase the relative proportion of advertising space (in a single unit) to editorial content and, where possible, run fewer but more captivating ads on the page.[3]
Inspire creativity and high-quality advertising : Develop display units that will inspire a creative renaissance in high-quality advertising by providing a larger canvas for creativity, content and functionality.[3] "The IAB is working with our member companies, as well as marketers and agencies, on a strategic effort to reimagine display advertising so brands can fully leverage greater creativity and innovation in interactive advertising."[2] The issue of creativity in digital advertising has recently become a central issue. Just last month, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, another association, opened its annual meeting by calling for interactive publishers to break away from their focus on direct-response advertising and give more thought to helping advertisers brand themselves online.[10]
The Pushdown (recommended dimension is 970 wide x 418 tall), which opens to display the advertisement and then rolls up to the top of the page. The publishers, who claim to reach two-thirds of American Internet users, are coordinating their efforts through the Online Publishers Association.[7] Twenty-seven large publishers are introducing three new types of online display ads today.[8] Most of that growth will be in Web search, while spending on so-called display ads is expected to fall. EMarketer said in November that U.S. online ad spending would reach $23.6 billion in 2008 and $25.7 billion this year, but senior analyst David Hallerman said those figures would be revised downward soon. To some extent, the inherent nature of advertising is to annoy people enough so that they pay attention.[6] "Advertising rarely doesn't irritate," Hallerman said. What Google Inc. and other search firms discovered is that people don't mind ads as much when the marketing message is related to what they're already doing online, such as searching for something.[6]
Will these ads resize on smaller/older monitors? These sound like monsters (especially the last one) that will simply eat older screen real estate alive. People on 800 x 600 and 600 x 400 are to be pitied if the ads are one-size only - what is this little consortium thinking? And if everyone switches (wisely, I would say) from visiting the website to reading the RSS (in order to avoid the new, more invasive ads), guess what? Eyeballs/impressions/conversions drop to around zero again - nothing gained, perhaps more lost. [9] I imagine many others do, too. They really think that being more intrusive will get them better responses? They really think that people won't learn to ignore these ads? Sure, at the beginning people will look at them, but pretty soon they'll be blind to them as they are blind to TV ads now. People don't like ads, they are not interested in anything else but what they went to the site for, making ads more intrusive and in your face won't change this.[9]
The idea is for the OPA sites, which represent 108 million monthly users, to bridge the divide between customized brand ad options and the need for standard formats.[2] Forcing the ad into a bigger and more obnoxious format will only make the user experience suffer. Marketers similarly have to ask themselves ''' what'''s a better use of video assets? Embedding them in an expandable ad that will serve to annoy and vex visitors or placing them on a social media property like YouTube where they can drive user engagement, even if it means less control.[12]
The IAB created an agency advisory council to participate in the development of new ad standards, which Rothenberg last week said would likely include larger formats.[2] The new formats represent an effort to boost an ad market that has grown dramatically in recent years but is suffering in the slumping economy.[6] One new format is the "pushdown," recommended at a whopping 970 pixels wide by 418 tall on the page.[8]
Participating publishers including CNNMoney.com, ESPN.com, Forbes.com, Cond'' Nast Digital, and NYTimes.com are expected to begin running the new units on July 1. [4] Some of the new units have already been put to use. The Times and WSJ have run versions of the pull-down unit for Apple recently on their Web sites.[2]
Until today, standardized banner ads have been steadily making less money for publishers because social networks, blogs and all manner of other web sites are continually increasing overall banner inventory.[8] With the rise in recent years of search advertisements--the little snippets of commercial text that appear next to search results--online display ads don't get much respect these days. While search ads are expected to grow about 9% this year, revenues for pictorial display ads may actually fall. Now, several major Web sites are hoping to rekindle interest in display ads--especially those used for creating a brand impression rather than simply eliciting a click.[1] The Web industry has agreed on a standard set of five ad specifications for display units, a "universal ad package" developed by the IAB in 2003. That's helped make the industry more efficient, but some have questioned whether such efficiency comes at the price of innovation. "This hopefully will kick off a broad sweeping process to reinvent the medium as a better branding vehicle," Fogarty said[2]
It's would be nice to see the big boys playing with new ideas in terms of ads, but are these ideas really new? They're just different standard sizes.[9] Did 27 publishers just agree to start selling ad space to a new provider (VideoEgg)? Did 27 publishers really decide on an advertising scheme without even seeing mockups of 2/3 of the schemes? (I find it hard to believe that 27 publishers were able to agree on anything).[9] J.D. Lasica, president of Socialmedia.biz, a consulting company in Pleasanton, Calif., said publishers needed to be innovative in more than just the size and shape of the ads. "All of these news publications are in a tough spot because the print publications are dwindling away. They have to figure out how to make money in the new medium," he said.[6]
The key point is that the ads are going to be ginormous and gaudy-think monster trucks with sirens and flashing lights. The reasonable thing to point out here is that there's nothing that prohibits advertisers and publishers from doing interesting and creative stuff with these formats-just like Apple.[14] The publishers have committed to offer at least one of the three advertising units by July 1, 2009. Advertisers interested should contact their publishers.[3]
Adweek provides advertisers with daily TV news and weekly ad industry editorials on a complete array of subjects. [2] Changing the ad sizes just means users will find a new pattern that does the same thing -- avoid looking at the ads.[9]
"With the economy and the move to digital, the marketers are demanding a return on investment in every campaign." Some Time Inc. sites, including People.com and CNNMoney.com, have already experimented with the ads and found them to be successful, said Fran Hauser, president of digital operations for the company's style and entertainment group.[6] The size of the ads is not intended to lead to more overall advertising on OPA sites, however.[10]
The ads are even taking a page from the content side of the online equation: each will feature a forward-to-a-friend button.[4] Let'''s face it, the banner ad is an inherently broken model.'' To some extent this is due to the unreasonable expectation that because it'''s online it should be measured by clicks.[12] Alas, as optimistic as the article's title sounds, I can't help but think a more appropriate title would be "Publishers abandon banner ads, adopt commercials".[9]
It'''s a static ad like a billboard or a print page and it shouldn'''t be expected to function as much more beyond that.[12]
From print to online advertising trends, advertising professionals can read all about the latest advertising news at Adweek. [2] Thankfully, there are plenty of alternative news and entertainment sources on the web where this type of advertising can be avoided.[9]
SOURCES
1. Online Ads: Will Fewer, but Bigger, Be Better? - BusinessWeek
2. Top Web Publishers Pledge Bigger Ads
3. Online Publishers Association :: Online Publishers Association Members Announce New Display Advertising Units
4. OPA bows bigger, hopefully better, banners | Blog | Econsultancy
5. OPA proposes trio of new ad units - Advertising - BizReport
6. In-your-face Web ad formats popping up all over - Los Angeles Times
7. Online publishers unite to replace banners with bigger ads | The Industry Standard
8. Leading web publishers to move beyond banner ads » VentureBeat
9. 27 Huge Publishers Join To Replace The Banner
10. OPA Hopes to Spur Greater Creativity with New Ad Units - ClickZ
11. Top Online Publishers Unroll Bigger Banner Ads - MarketingVOX
12. Advertising: Why Super Banners are Lame and Publishers are Perishing (Even Online) | SearchViews - Daily insights on Search Marketing, Social Media and SEO by Reprise Media.
13. MediaPost Publications Real Media Riffs - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 05/15/2007
14. MediaFile » Blog Archive » Online ads, creatively in your face | Blogs |
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