New OPA ad formats to roll out soon
(By Tom on 1 July 2009 | Posted in Advertising)
Remember the news this spring describing some new ad formats from the Online Publisher’s Association (OPA)?
TechCrunch reminds us that these formats will begin to roll out soon.
Not that anyone polled has ever said they like ads, here’s a poll TechCrunch has running:
Their coverage is concerned with the fact that the industry’s response to falling revenue is simply to make ads larger. That’s a valid concern.
But we’ve stated before that publishers need to step up in strategically designing their properties for advertising. This is a step in the right direction. Advertisers want more than some derelict banner 1200px below the fold placed on some obscure website…
TechCrunch author Robin Wauters makes another point that we would like to echo:
Is it just me or does anyone else think that display advertising units on websites should become more relevant to them instead of just bigger? What’s next, 1200×600 ads?
In addition to our saber rattling for publisher’s to improve their ad units, it is vital that ad networks and media buyers focus on targeting to make the message relevant.
What do you think? Are you excited to develop for some new ad formats? I always like toying with new sizes and capabilities.
1 Comment
Excited? Good God no.
It’s hard enough for traditional business and media to produce and offering strong enough to get millions of users to come and participate (I know because we’re trying), without having to bear this kind of increasing annoyance-cost to the users of our sites.
I say this as part of a UX/Design team involved in both display ad production and designing a large scale content/community site. Every time something like this happens there’s that much more annoyance cost to the user that we have to overcome. It doesn’t matter how targeted the message is, if it’s not the reason users came there in the first place it’s invasive. Even if it IS relevant, when it comes wrapped in the advertising medium it’s tainted.
Advertising needs to start delivering value to users. Umair Haque is right on the money with this.
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