BANNERS FOR BRANDING: OPA ANNOUNCES NEW BANNER FORMATS & METRICS
A banner’s only as good as its click through and conversion rate. Right? Wrong…
It seems that soon enough a few new banner formats and performance metrics will finally allow marketers to make more of an impression online, and more importantly, provide them with the means to prove it.
Recently the Online Publisher’s Association unveiled a plan to launch three new ad formats to free-up creativity & ultimately reduce clutter. At this stage, 24 OPA members including the New York Times have signed up to launch at least 1 of the new formats by the 1st July. Their options will include:
The Fixed Panel (336x 860), which will appear a true part of the page and scroll up and down as the user navigates the page.
The XXL Box (468x 648) with feature page turning and video capabilities.
The Pushdown (970x 418) which will open to reveal the advertisement and then roll up to the top of the page.
Word is, the new formats will also include a ‘forward to friends’ feature allowing users to e-mail the ad to others.
With this, also comes the news that OPA also intends on developing new metrics to determine the overall branding effectiveness of ad units. Up until now, the key indicators used to determine whether or not an ad was ‘effective’ have been clicks and conversions. All metrics associated with direct response. The question is, how has an ad impacted upon brand awareness? In fact, some researchers have also claimed that display advertising can positively impact upon the click through rates of search ads, again suggesting display advertising ‘works’ without necessarily resulting in a direct response to the specific ad.
So what will more creative freedom and branding metrics mean for the advertising world? It’s likely we’ll see more activity online from advertisers wanting to build, strengthen or reposition brands. A specific call to action will become an option not a mandatory requirement, with advertisers being able to prove the success of an online campaign from a branding perspective.
Some say the new branding metric has come at an all too convenient time for the industry as click through rates continue to decline. However, I’d argue that more creative freedom and new branding metrics are simply presenting advertisers with more choice. There’s nothing shady about it. We’re spending more and more time online, so surely what’s good for branding offline is now equally or more effective online. And, if we can now measure the branding effectiveness along with direct response then surely this will be of much interest to marketers worldwide.
