Earlier this year an online publishing trade group of large media companies, separate from the IAB, promised to get its members to start running new, bigger, harder-to-ignore adsby July, according to yesterday’s MediaPost.
You’ll see the new ads on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, MSNBC and ESPN, who all will start selling the plus-sized ads this week. TechCrunch tells readers ”you will hate them”, (TechCrunch also shows what the sizes look like just past the jump). Read More »
Posted by Newswire |
06/30/09 | No Comments »
For media sites with a few big advertisers to impress customized online graphics can make or break a sale.
Imagine pitching the big deal with a demo that includes corner peels, sliding billboards and floating ads. Media companies can now outsource high-end custom design to the Online Ad Studio for reasonable rates. Created by Cox Ohio, the Online Ad Studio has hired internationally acclaimed designers, who are also certified in Yahoo! specifications. Custom ads can cost around $1000, a minimal investment to land a big fish (examples after the break). Read More »
Posted by Alisa Cromer |
04/18/09 | No Comments »
Ad agencies - and large clients - have long been clamoring for bigger and sexier ad units online, especially ones with interruptive features.
So a group belonging to Online Publisher’s Association (OPA) has agreed to add three new and more dramatic ad units by July, 2009. The OPA - and its initial participating members — are primarily national online publishers back by MSM companies (for media sites who want to offer high end custom ads to large clients without ad agencies, Cox Ohio is outsourcing high end ad design through Online Ad Studio, see Flip, Peel and Float Your Advertisers).
At very least, the group is showing how to work together to create more innovation in advertising units as well as some conformity as ad units evolve. At best the group could set a new standard for brand advertising that trickles down to local ad markets and geo-publishers.
According to the OPA, proposed new units are:
- “The Fixed Panel (recommended dimension is 336 wide x 860 tall), which looks naturally embedded into the page layout and scrolls to the top and bottom of the page as a user scrolls.
- The XXL Box (recommended dimension is 468 wide x 648 tall), which has page-turn functionality with video capability.
- The Pushdown (recommended dimension is 970 wide x 418 tall), which opens to display the advertisement and then rolls up to the top of the page.”
Participating members include BabyCenter, Bizjournals, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, CBS Interactive, CNN, Condé Nast Digital, Discovery Communications, ESPN, Forbes.com, FOXNews Digital, IDG, iVillage Network, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Meredith Interactive, msnbc.com, MTV Networks, NBC Universal, New York Media, The New York Times, Reed Business Information, Reuters, Time Inc., USA Today, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, Washington Post Digital and Weather.com.
OPA claims the group has “ unduplicated reach of 108.3 million visitors, or 66 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience.” Each publisher has committed to offer one of the ad units.
Some of the most creative ads are coming out of the movie industry which often buys “wraps” in which an entire page or channel is surrounded by the film promotion. However most publishers still lag in the ability to provide interactive ads and units that are the branding equivalent of, say, a full page in a magazine.
For local publishers struggling to monetize traffic the cost and effort involved in redesigning sites to accomodate new kinds of units is daunting and an an industry standard will be welcomed.
However the attempt to create conformity for sexy ad units is still only a spot on a tentacle of the larger internet octopus. Not included in the OPA membership list are the top ten largest or fastest growing internet companies like Facebook and Twitter.
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Posted by Alisa Cromer |
03/29/09 | No Comments »
