Not that anyone polled has ever said they like ads, here’s a poll TechCrunch has running:
Their coverage is concerned with the fact that the industry’s response to falling revenue is simply to make ads larger. That’s a valid concern.
But we’ve stated before that publishers need to step up in strategically designing their properties for advertising. This is a step in the right direction. Advertisers want more than some derelict banner 1200px below the fold placed on some obscure website…
TechCrunch author Robin Wauters makes another point that we would like to echo:
Is it just me or does anyone else think that display advertising units on websites should become more relevant to them instead of just bigger? What’s next, 1200×600 ads?
In addition to our saber rattling for publisher’s to improve their ad units, it is vital that ad networks and media buyers focus on targeting to make the message relevant.
What do you think? Are you excited to develop for some new ad formats? I always like toying with new sizes and capabilities.
The Wall Street Journal (subscription) wrote today that there are differing reports on the health of online advertising’s growth.
TNS is saying that “online display advertising, which includes banners, was up 8.2%” and the only medium seeing ad revenue growth. Obviously this is great news for online advertisers and marketers.
Not so fast, says PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is reporting online advertising revenue fell 5% in Q1 2009. Ouch.
So what gives? Is our industry growing, stagnant, contracting?
We have some ideas.*
1. Online advertising is not recession-proof
The current economic crisis is mercilessly weeding out the slagging elements of the world economy. This certainly includes historically huge online advertisers, like the auto industry and finance. Naturally, online advertising’s revenue, and growth, will slow with those big players hurting so much.
This aligns with PWC’s analysis.
2. Long-term is still bright
We actually feel a bit silly using the term recession when we’re actually amidst something much more serious — there are myriad depression comparisons these days.
But this depressing news is cause for optimism in our industry. While we’re not recession-proof, the new media is poised to really benefit once the economy turns around. This economy is revealing a lot about the ailments of print, radio and television industries. We’ve really hit a breaking point where the Internet is fragmenting all media types.
If you haven’t seen the below clip, you’ll be amazed by it’s prescience:
What do you think? How is our industry fairing? Where will it go?
*We’re neither economists, nor analysts — or even that smart, really. So, we’d really like to start a conversation with your input. Please comment below!
In late April, DoubleClick Rich Media announced a new tool called DoubleClick Rich Media Studio.
We’ve used several tools in the past to create rich media ads: Atlas’s integrated Rich Media MTK, EyeBlaster’s integrated Workshop and PointRoll’s online tool. The integrated (quasi-offline) tools — a la Atlas, EyeBlaster and, now, DoubleClick — that work within the Flash IDE are great because they allow you to build the rich media components directly within the production work flow.
However, PointRoll’s online tool has one advantage in that building ads on their server replicates the latencies and testing environment very well. There’s nothing more frustrating than testing a rich media ad locally, then seeing it falter when pushed to the server!
Have you tried out DoubleClick’s tool? Do you have any other tools that you’ve used to create rich media solutions?
What’s the best way to build your rich media ad units?
From Search Engine Land, quoting SVP Jonathan Rosenberg — “He added that Google was going to focus more on display advertising. Google was going to try to overcome some of the fragmentation in the online display market. Google wants to ‘turn a complex process into something simpler.’ He added, ‘We want to make display as relevant to users as search is,’ which was followed by a mention of Interest-based ads as instrumental in that process.”
We still think the biggest problem with online display advertising is the infinite inventory that is available and the lack of targeting available. For instance, it is difficult to find banner ad placements targeted only to widget collectors. And then when you find several relevant sites, the salesperson will say that reaching them doesn’t fulfill a minimum spend. The same song is true for behavorial targeting, demographic-targeting, psychographic, etc.
As the media angle gets sorted out — and we hope Google can help institute change — the outlook for banner ads will improve.
