Earlier this month, the Online Publishers Association announced that a broad set of its members would be adopting new larger ad units. The initial list of participants is fairly impressive, including more than 2 dozen top tier publishers such as CNN, The NY Times, WSJ Network and ESPN. The full list of publishers reaches over 66% of the total Internet audience, or roughly 108 million visitors. These heavy hitters are adding some truly massive units to their arsenal of ad units.
The “Fixed Panel” – a 336×860 pixel banner. It’s wider than standard skyscraper and follows users as they scroll down the page.
The “XXL” – a 468×648 pixel box with expandable video capability.
The “Pushdown” – a 970×418 pixel unit that takes up over half of a page before rolling up.
There’s little doubt that these ads performed in tests leading to rollout. On a limited basis I’m sure they resulted in a lift in CTR, engagement, and possibly even conversions or transactions. It’s hard to disagree with the OPA’s intent to foster innovation and efficacy in the online space, but this particular move is a dangerous one that could easily backfire in the long term.
We at UsableClicks jump on any change we get to attend conferences and panels, learn about new technologies, and take every opportunity to stay on the cutting edge. This weekend Jim and Mike headed to SXSW Interactive (follow their notes via Twitter @usableclicks), and yesterday I attended Google Video View, a presentation held inside the Google Sales office. The Video View presentation was split in two parts.
Part 1: Obama Marketing Campaign Insights
The first was a keynote speech by Jim Margolis, senior advisor to the Barack Obama campaign. Much of his hour was spent showing commercial spots, but the message was always the same. The Obama campaign was a focused marketing effort that laid out and never wavered from their strategic imperatives, their primary tactics, and their brand message. Their insight into the market (the US population soon to elect a new president) and their dedication to a plan they believe would work paid off, and Obama was elected.
Today Yahoo! came into the agency to talk about their new Rich Ads platform. It’s still in private beta, but you can see a few campaigns live now by searching for Pepsi, Victoria Secret Pink, or Esurance. By buying into the Rich Ads platform, you are guaranteed the top placement for a handful of your brand terms. Within that new Rich Ad placement you can add: a) click-to-play video or images, b) deep-link to multiple places on your campaign website, and c) offer custom search boxes or form submissions.
All of this might sound pretty good, right? so why is my first instinct to declare this a failed offering? (more…)
During my normal morning routine of coffee and email I noticed something unusual. This particular morning I was in the midst of adjusting my fantasy basketball lineup on Yahoo, when out of the corner of my eye I recognized a street name on an adjacent ad. It’s not very often that you see a postal address in a banner ad, much less one with a street name that you’re familiar with.
I didn’t see it coming and I certainly didn’t know it yet, but I had fallen victim to a geo-targeted campaign gone wrong. The 7-Eleven ad that grabbed my attention can be seen here on the left.
In case you were wondering where 2021 South MacArthur is, it’s in Oklahoma City, OK – approximately 1,500 miles from where I was sitting when the I saw the 7-Eleven ad. This targeting gone wrong isn’t as bad as you think and is probably not even 7-Eleven’s fault. I actually used to live in Oklahoma City and I’m sure Yahoo must have that information stored somewhere, although a quick search didn’t reveal where (not in my main profile, flickr or delicious).
This story goes from bad to worse when I went to click the ad. Click Click. Click. It’s not working. While I’m looking at the ad the following items painfully come to mind (in this order): (more…)
Several months ago I read on a blog about an opportunity to test a new brand of coffee and give feedback on it before it went into market. As a mild coffee addict and increasing coffee snob, I jumped on the opportunity. I took a survey of my coffee drinking habits, gave over my address, and eventually received a packet of coffee in the mail: Joffrey’s Java Beta Test. At the time I thought of it as a random taste testing opportunity, ignoring all the signs that I was part of an elaborate and precise marketing scheme to spread the name of a relatively unknown coffee brand. Now, long after I burned through the coffee I stumbled across the very interesting story behind Joffrey’s Java Beta Test:
Outside of a few twitters and IMs I, Surprisingly, didn’t see much chatter about the the latest promotional campaign by Seamless Web. For those of you who are lucky enough to live in a area covered by the online food delivery service, you know them by their off-beat emails and promotional efforts as well as being a very addictive step in the evolution of an even lazier form of food delivery.
When companies that typically do business off the web do something clever online the effort never fails to get coverage across a numberofsites. This isn’t to say that all executions are smart or make sense, as much as I am an evangelist for online media – it will probably never make sense for Quaker Oats to build a social network or setup a facebook fan page (there is a chance it already has one). It seems that it would only be fair that there should be similar coverage for the inverse situation (online company doing something clever offline). Although there is a number of cases that get press, mostly godaddy superbowl ads and the occasional search cross promotion, we don’t get too many examples as the cost difference of media/production and lack of hard analytics keeps most online companies away.
I am a Senior Strategist at SS+K. I handle digital & social media strategy for a number of clients. I also keep a personal blog here. View Kevin Skobac's profile
We at UsableClicks jump on any change we get to attend 
View Kevin Skobac's profile