“Online ads will top $100 billion by 2015 while continuing to outpace traditional advertising revenue,” is the gist of one report issued last month by Magna Global, IPG’s Mediabrands’ global forecasting and analysis division. This sort of sentiment has been pretty common among online marketers over the past few years, with anecdotes such as “Marketers spend more on Internet ads, as they look to engage [their] audience, plus get fuller measurement and targeting” reinforcing the behavioral mindset that traditional ads are on the way out.

This is fantastic, positive news for both online publishers and advertisers! However, the reality is that display engagement rates continue to decline as users become “accustomed” to online ads, i.e. ignoring them. This trend has already started pushing marketers toward more intrusive ads such as video, non-standard rich media and social marketing. And suffice to say, success rates for social marketing are still difficult to evaluate.

As the online industry grows across every channel, the continually unanswered question is whether good ol’ online banners can survive in their current form, or if they need to go through a major makeover.  In other media, there is little discussion about unit size standardization (e.g. 15- or 30-second spots are the norm in TV, full-page or full-spread placements in print, etc.) or of the wide variety of targeting techniques by the type of ad (branding or direct response).  Instead, traditional marketers focus on creating the most memorable, compelling messages and finding the appropriate audience and context for that creative.  However, due to its flexibility and measurability, online display media formats continue to be under close evaluation because specific ad placements, sizes, formats and colors seem to play important roles in click-through rates and earnings for publishers and advertisers.

The heatmap below is from a 2007 eye-tracking study is a great illustration of why publishers and advertisers are averse to display banners and why there is an urgent need for change. The red areas were tracked by viewers’ eyeballs more than any other areas.  On the other hand, the gray areas, which contained the banner ads, received no fixations from viewers.

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Online Publishers Association (OPA) have already made several attempts to make these stale online units a bit more stylish. Both organizations even invited publishers and creative agencies to participate in these conversations, in an attempt to close the gap between the interests of publishers – who require the sales efficiency afforded by standardization – and advertisers – many of whom have come to see banners as ineffective and stiff.

It has been over a year since the OPA introduced the new ad formats, which were designed to: (1) help marketers deliver a greater share of voice by increasing the ratio of ad space to editorial content, (2) create a new ad metric to measure the emotional impact of creative advertising and (3) increase consumers’ ability to engage with brands.  For those who haven’t seen the new formats live, here is a rundown of their specifications:

• The Fixed Panel: 336 wide x 700 tall, remains constant as the user scrolls to the top and bottom of the page
• The XXL Box: 468 wide x 648 tall, opens for seven seconds to 936 wide x 648 tall with 1/24x frequency
• The Pushdown: 970 wide x 418 tall, opens to display the advertisement and then after seven seconds rolls up to 970 wide x 66 tall with 1/24x frequency

Another unit that has recently flooded the market is called “Hover Ad,” which exists at the bottom of the browser and remains above the fold as the user scrolls. You can see an example of one at the bottom of the page in the image below.

Do these non-traditional ad units really boost the fortunes of online display and “work,” or are they simply gimmicky?  Does anybody think bigger banners will fix the problem? Sure, bigger, splashier and more interactive units carry with them the potential for increased ROI, but also bring with them a risk of increased clutter on the website, which is a turn-off for publishers and advertisers alike.

A year after these new units have been introduced, there still doesn’t seem to be any official studies available on ad-effectiveness that would prove or disprove whether the OPA moved in the right direction.  So far, I’ve only heard negative feedback that the “Pushdown” units are a nuisance and obstructive, and that the user’s main goal is to get them off the page. The click-through rates also don’t seem to be anything extraordinary, falling between 0.1 – 0.3 percent.  I’m guessing this format has the same destiny as pop-ups or peel-backs, which gained a lot of buzz five years ago and are now barely seen due to their intrusiveness.

Display is still not dead, contrary to the war cries of many online marketers. It’s just that the revolutionary “display ad makeover” that many have yearned for has yet to occur.  Until then, advertisers will have to continue using the standard banners and occasionally testing new unit discoveries.  Perhaps new mobile devices (like the iPad) and new ad delivery mechanisms (like iAds) will open up new creative opportunities and outlets for digital display and rich media advertising. But again, this won’t do much to directly help the “good old” banners from surviving into the next generation of internet usage.

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