We are strictily talking about design, not about CTR or tech.
So, mainly they say that a good banner shall have: Interactivity, good use of space, compelling imagery, good texts, call to action, branding elements and a bit of humor.
What shouldn´t be on a banner: Lost messages, falses promises, excesive impact and bad colour treatment.
In my opinion, if we talk about sales, I still think the most important thing is the publisher where the Ad goes. Talking about branding is different, that way creativity is much more important.
For the second answer, this is Google and in my opinion they are launching one of the biggest campaigns of the year with Watch This Space. Everyone of us has seen it even on print. It´s not a prize winning campaign but its omnipresent.
Some time ago Google was too centered on AdSense and others. So, what would happen if the bigger advertiser would jump on Richmedia display ads? Well they first bought Double Click Studio and then began to work. In fact that´s a good idea, to have an agency making formats for your publisher page, even more if all people are saying again and again that video is going to take the web. Yes I´m talking about YouTube...
So they became one more of the richmedia publishers you should follow, with MSN, Yahoo and AOL.
First question: What did he say?
1 -The number of display ad impressions will decrease by 25 percent per person. I don´t believe so. It´s like saying they will remove Ads from tv. no sense.
2- Engagement rates across all display ads will increase by 50 percent.
Well, I understand video comes strong although maybe not that amount. How do you measure engage? I remember, there was a mobile phone from Nokia, called Nokia NGage. It was for gaming, enjoying time. So now it will be video, hope better than pre-roll.
3- People will have a direct say in 25 percent of the ads they see. This is related to Cookies. In fact there´s a new law coming, at least in Europe, I don´t believe it will change a lot.
4- 35 percent of campaigns will primarily use metrics beyond clicks and conversions. That´s logic. Richmedia and video bring new metrics against CTR. Anytime you want your customer to be engaged you can give him a lot of metrics.
5- 25 billion ads per day will tell people why they are seeing them. You can also ask Steve Jobs what does he thinks about cookies and his iAd. Also Zuckerberg, I look forward to seeing the day when display ads go to Social Media king (FB).
6- Over 40 percent of online Americans will name display ads as their favorite ad format. The other 60% must be watching the superbowl Ads video.
Well, we don´t have the data that Google has but same intuitions had already been said
This the tipical scheme of a banner life, it could also be a richmedia workflow life:
First step: A customer who wants to sell something or just make branding or so, decides to make a Media campaign on the Internet. Usually they´re launched just after you see the TV ad.
So customer meets his Media Agency. There´s a man on that agency called the Media Planner. He is in charge of negotiating and making the best out of the budget customer has. So, he could do SEO, SEM, Social Media or a Display Campaign which is our case. Probably the final product of this man is a planning.
Next step: There´s a Tech agency in charge of keeping an eye so everything is fine. They know the specifications of every format for Publishers, they are in contact with creative agencies, and they are able to solve any issue related to the campaign (creativity, traffic, tracking, implementation). I work in one of these ;)
The technology agency contacts the creativity agency, they give them templates and tell them what they can and can´t do acording to publishers´specs. So they work hand by hand with creative agencies. These ones usually have a design or programming department.
When the creative agency has the campaign ready, there´s a proccess called validation which has three steps:
- Technical level, in charge of the Tech Agency
- Creative level, usually for the customer
- Publisher level
This one is the final step. Publisher checks all tags are ok and insert the ads in its website.
Well, this is a very reduced and simplified view of how it is. A banner life or a campaign life could last a lot of time, or have different steps. These five are main characters of a banner story.
Main skill to improve this workflow is communications between the five parts.
It´s on the news from last week. IAB Interactive Advertising Bureau, has made public the winner formats from "Rising Stars". The main criteria for this was Branding, User Experience, Funcionality, Integration and Adoption. Let´s have a look to the new Richmedia formats approved!
from AOL, also a superSky. Comes with integration with video, working with modules. I haven´t seen this format on action yet, at least in Spain. Very detailed specs
A 970x90, we are used to seeing this one working on media. The Ad pushes down all the content, usually in home pages. The video makes special attention on Social Media integration (quite easy from Flash)
Usually it´s seen on MSN home. It moves all content to one size, usually to the left, working with Javascript. Works specially fine if you combine it with a leaderboard and a great wallpaper.
So, what can we say about these formats? It were about 24 companies taking part on the meeting, some of them really great and known for their creativity as TheBarbarianGroup. Besides there will be some formats out of date.
This is a good initiative for the most important entity on online advertisement. We have already seen some of this new formats.
In my opinion innovation on formats is a key point, specially for publishers as they can have advantage over competitors. Perhaps it´s time for IAB to revise all specs for Richmedia Ads (Richmedia Creative Guidelines are from May 2008)
Imagine a media plan with 20 or 30 different formats where you need to do the .gif and the .swf. Well, these people from 4delite have created a tool to do all those formats all al once in the same process so the workflow would be really faster and cheaper than now.
The project runs under a Flex framework, at least that´s what they say in their blog. For the back side they ask for .NET, C#, WSDL and XML. Take a look at the video:
It looks great! Perhaps it´s too much to say that in a campaign you have to do seven thousand banners but the way it works looks fast and effective.
The cost is about 50 dollars every mont for little commerce, big customers should ask
I had a little chat with a friend working for Eyewonder and decided to post about it.
In Spain, and differing from other countries the rich formats leader is Eyeblaster. There are also some new firms as Richandreach but the other two are the main ones.
Eyeblaster has just published the content of the sessions they already did in Madrid. You can watch this video of Pablo Morales from Eyeblaster talking about future and change. Also take a look at the other videos of the congress on the right.
Ok, let´s talk now about Eyewonder! My friend told me: Now it is the time for videoplayers, tickers and overlays. You will see also a lot of lateral scrolls. For example:
This is a creation from Eyewonder Germany. It has 3 banners, two of them sincronized, with a superlateral layer (2400 x875). I scored 374m, did you beat me?
What about crisis? Internet is beatting the TV, all of us know, anyway campaings are a bit poor cos there are creativities without video or impressions are passed to display (gif, jpg, etc.)
The cost of a campaign is between 1.000 and 2.000€, it depends. Some charge just CPM (cost per 1.000 impressions), it is usually standard and depends on the work donde. Take a look at this one and wait for the banner to load.
What can I say about this? Ok, if you have to work with them, just don´t do like me!, call them first! It´s better!
