A few of my favorite ad formats

Emily Riley | November 30, 2007, 04:19 PM

So it looks like Facebook took the criticism to heart and is altering their Beacon product to become opt-in. I definitely got plenty of eager calls asking if this will signal the downfall of the site, or if they will have to switch to a new business model. Their tenacity leads me to believe neither is the case. Again, my main concern is the growing clutter on the site.

In fact ad clutter is a top concern for online advertisers in general. With the increase in popularity of widgets, in-text advertising, and pre-roll ads with no frequency cap, it might seem like the problem is growing worse. Jupiter conservatively estimates that consumers see about 50 or 60 online ads per day. It sounds like a lot, but compared to television commercials, it’s not so crazy. The problem is that the ads are in so many formats, sometimes 5 or more to a page, that the messages seem to bombard a consumer from every angle. It makes sense: Many online studies have shown that consumers quickly learn to block out ads that appear in the same spot from page to page, like with banners on the perimeter. Efforts to counteract the effect such as blinking or trick banners have long gone by the wayside. So what’s a decent online advertiser to do other than test a lot of new formats? I say that as an industry we need to select a more limited number of formats that might be more intrusive at first, but will be able to streamline the media buying process and reduce clutter on websites.
My favorites include:
Interstitials: I think nytimes.com does a good interstitial. It’s like a “content commercial” that consumers should be able to deal with at a broader level, especially when navigating to content that they already know is valuable. I think it will have to be necessary to make consumers sit through it, with no “close” button feature.
Across the page banners: Forget the 728x90 at the top of the page, bring a full horizontal banner into the middle of the page.
Ad supported widgets: If publishers are forced to offer content in widgets, they will need to earn a living.
Mid-roll and expanding ticker video ads: Pre-roll is fine for long content from the networks, but consumers grow wary of waiting for a video to load if they don’t know what they are going to see such as with UGV.

Things that need work:
Rollover expandable banners: A mouse-over is not a click. (User initiated rollover is great, however.)
Floating ads: Publishers need more discretion here. The coolness factor weighs heavily with me when determining if it’s annoying or OK.
In-text ads: I am a firm believer in keeping “church” and “state” separate.