Monday
Larger Ad Formats/Units Show Promise
By Joseph Jaffe
This article couldn’t be coming out at a better time, as a slew of new pieces of research speaking to the subject have recently become available to the industry.
But before I dive into some of them, I thought I would take some time to set up this subject, which seems to be in many respects like a piece of gum that has been chewed on for way too long. “Bigger is Better” has been one of the older clichés used to make the case for life after banners, using predominantly skyscrapers and small rectangular units.
Today’s landscape reflects a sea change of formats and units that even resemble offline alternatives, daring to use terms like full screen or half page. We’ve also been witness to expanding and contracting units that morph on demand, at the click or hover of a mouse (try teaching that trick to your old dog).
The bottom line is that the landscape has shifted immeasurably, in part due to the wondrous technologies at our fingertips, but also in part due to good old fashioned creative, marketing and media fundamentals and the best practices application thereof.
Take clutter for example. Old way: multiple competing buttons. New way: one full-screen intro message, one leaderboard with a synchronized skyscraper or one IMU unit on a page with virtually nothing else that would be classified as paid media.
In an environment that is still battling to drive down the number of formats to a sane amount (case in point, the latest Q2 2003 number of ad unit sizes comes in at 10,616 according to the latest DoubleClick Ad Serving trends report), a larger ad size by definition plays an increasing role in terms of reducing the amount of potential distraction.
Larger unit sizes and formats bring a variety of pros to the table. For starters, there are the psychological benefits associated with offering clients a product that exudes quality, relative to its Lilliputian predecessors.
Then there’s the more substantial boon to the creative community, in terms of being able to give the storytelling writers and designers a greater portion of canvas on which to weave their tapestries.
Another important variable is that of message complexity.
“Based on advertiser spending patterns in other media, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the more complex the message an advertiser can create, the more money they will invest in that medium,” states Allie Savarino, SVP of Marketing at Unicast Communications. “It’s obvious by their historical behavior that advertisers do not find banners, buttons, boxes and even fly-by ads to be canvases with enough potential for complexity akin to other media. Online, the messages proven to offer the greatest complexity and creative opportunity, and thus deemed most valuable to advertisers, are those that are large in physical and file size.”
The latest Dynamic Logic research with Nielsen and ESOMAR drives home these points. Relative to their MarketNorms database, large rectangles (336 x 280) and rectangles (180 x 150) outperformed (as an index of composite performance versus the benchmark) the norms at 135% and 129% respectively in terms of effecting brand lift (awareness, association and persuasion). This compared to skyscrapers and leaderboards which came in at 78% and 73%, followed by banners ‘n buttons neck and neck at 52% and 51% respectively.
A couple of conclusions worth sharing here:
The composite numbers are just that…composite. The results tend to vary when compared and contrasted between the various consumer adoption stages (awareness, association and persuasion). The fact that different formats perform differently underpins the importance of being able to map performance back to specific communications objectives. It also demonstrates how stupid we look when we try and evaluate brand messaging against direct-response metrics!
The term “rectangle” is probably a little misleading and not very rich as a descriptor in any event, but the fact that larger rectangles lead the way reminds me of another rectangular medium – the television. Creatives understand communicating in rectangular dimension, be they billboards, spreads or 30-second television spots.
That’s the good. Now here comes the bad and downright ugly.
Ceteris Paribus (all things being equal), if the unit size increases, should the effectiveness match that increase in size? If a page becomes a spread, should the number of leads double? And how does this stack up from a cost perspective in terms of efficiency?
These are some of the questions currently being butchered by several number-obsessed buyers who wholeheartedly subscribe to the “just being we can measure, we should” philosophy.
Luckily, the ESOMAR study comes to the rescue once again:
Based on an exposure of one and using rate card as a benchmark, the study found that the larger units were not only more effective in terms of brand lift, but efficient at effecting that lift as well.
“Overall, larger and newer formats effectively utilize more real estate to communicate and persuade,” says Tom Deierlein, COO of Dynamic Logic. “Our recent work with Nielsen for an ESOMAR study showed that the higher CPMs of the larger formats are justified by returns: the effectiveness is worth additional cost as seen in greater ROI per branding point. The key caveat is that excellent creative is still a major determinant of overall effectiveness for any size.”
Adds Savarino: “All of the research we have seen indicates that there is no point of diminishing return on larger, richer ad units so long as they are delivered (i.e. pre-cached) responsibly and play in a way that is familiar to consumers (i.e. in the transitional space).”
And advertisers are taking note as the DoubleClick chart below suggests:
Larger units are growing not only in pixel size, but in terms of usage as well.
Finally, here is a case example for Snuggle, using the ultimate larger ad format (in terms of usage of available screen pixels), the Full Screen Superstitial.
The Dynamic Logic results revealed exponential lifts in key brand metrics, relative to both MarketNorms and a vertical average for the CPG sector.
The best practice of larger ad formats and sizes is one of those obvious ones that you just know will be completely exploited, mismanaged and abused. Hopefully this article sheds some new light on the subject for those who tend to look a gift horse in the mouth before attaching it to the rear of the cart.
By Joseph Jaffe
This article couldn’t be coming out at a better time, as a slew of new pieces of research speaking to the subject have recently become available to the industry.
But before I dive into some of them, I thought I would take some time to set up this subject, which seems to be in many respects like a piece of gum that has been chewed on for way too long. “Bigger is Better” has been one of the older clichés used to make the case for life after banners, using predominantly skyscrapers and small rectangular units.
Today’s landscape reflects a sea change of formats and units that even resemble offline alternatives, daring to use terms like full screen or half page. We’ve also been witness to expanding and contracting units that morph on demand, at the click or hover of a mouse (try teaching that trick to your old dog).
The bottom line is that the landscape has shifted immeasurably, in part due to the wondrous technologies at our fingertips, but also in part due to good old fashioned creative, marketing and media fundamentals and the best practices application thereof.
Take clutter for example. Old way: multiple competing buttons. New way: one full-screen intro message, one leaderboard with a synchronized skyscraper or one IMU unit on a page with virtually nothing else that would be classified as paid media.
In an environment that is still battling to drive down the number of formats to a sane amount (case in point, the latest Q2 2003 number of ad unit sizes comes in at 10,616 according to the latest DoubleClick Ad Serving trends report), a larger ad size by definition plays an increasing role in terms of reducing the amount of potential distraction.
Larger unit sizes and formats bring a variety of pros to the table. For starters, there are the psychological benefits associated with offering clients a product that exudes quality, relative to its Lilliputian predecessors.
Then there’s the more substantial boon to the creative community, in terms of being able to give the storytelling writers and designers a greater portion of canvas on which to weave their tapestries.
Another important variable is that of message complexity.
“Based on advertiser spending patterns in other media, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the more complex the message an advertiser can create, the more money they will invest in that medium,” states Allie Savarino, SVP of Marketing at Unicast Communications. “It’s obvious by their historical behavior that advertisers do not find banners, buttons, boxes and even fly-by ads to be canvases with enough potential for complexity akin to other media. Online, the messages proven to offer the greatest complexity and creative opportunity, and thus deemed most valuable to advertisers, are those that are large in physical and file size.”
The latest Dynamic Logic research with Nielsen and ESOMAR drives home these points. Relative to their MarketNorms database, large rectangles (336 x 280) and rectangles (180 x 150) outperformed (as an index of composite performance versus the benchmark) the norms at 135% and 129% respectively in terms of effecting brand lift (awareness, association and persuasion). This compared to skyscrapers and leaderboards which came in at 78% and 73%, followed by banners ‘n buttons neck and neck at 52% and 51% respectively.
A couple of conclusions worth sharing here:
The composite numbers are just that…composite. The results tend to vary when compared and contrasted between the various consumer adoption stages (awareness, association and persuasion). The fact that different formats perform differently underpins the importance of being able to map performance back to specific communications objectives. It also demonstrates how stupid we look when we try and evaluate brand messaging against direct-response metrics!
The term “rectangle” is probably a little misleading and not very rich as a descriptor in any event, but the fact that larger rectangles lead the way reminds me of another rectangular medium – the television. Creatives understand communicating in rectangular dimension, be they billboards, spreads or 30-second television spots.
That’s the good. Now here comes the bad and downright ugly.
Ceteris Paribus (all things being equal), if the unit size increases, should the effectiveness match that increase in size? If a page becomes a spread, should the number of leads double? And how does this stack up from a cost perspective in terms of efficiency?
These are some of the questions currently being butchered by several number-obsessed buyers who wholeheartedly subscribe to the “just being we can measure, we should” philosophy.
Luckily, the ESOMAR study comes to the rescue once again:
Based on an exposure of one and using rate card as a benchmark, the study found that the larger units were not only more effective in terms of brand lift, but efficient at effecting that lift as well.
“Overall, larger and newer formats effectively utilize more real estate to communicate and persuade,” says Tom Deierlein, COO of Dynamic Logic. “Our recent work with Nielsen for an ESOMAR study showed that the higher CPMs of the larger formats are justified by returns: the effectiveness is worth additional cost as seen in greater ROI per branding point. The key caveat is that excellent creative is still a major determinant of overall effectiveness for any size.”
Adds Savarino: “All of the research we have seen indicates that there is no point of diminishing return on larger, richer ad units so long as they are delivered (i.e. pre-cached) responsibly and play in a way that is familiar to consumers (i.e. in the transitional space).”
And advertisers are taking note as the DoubleClick chart below suggests:
Larger units are growing not only in pixel size, but in terms of usage as well.
Finally, here is a case example for Snuggle, using the ultimate larger ad format (in terms of usage of available screen pixels), the Full Screen Superstitial.
The Dynamic Logic results revealed exponential lifts in key brand metrics, relative to both MarketNorms and a vertical average for the CPG sector.
The best practice of larger ad formats and sizes is one of those obvious ones that you just know will be completely exploited, mismanaged and abused. Hopefully this article sheds some new light on the subject for those who tend to look a gift horse in the mouth before attaching it to the rear of the cart.
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