Seminar in Interactive Advertising

Seminar Notes for Topic:

“Creative Issues in

Interactive Advertising”

Department of Advertising

College of Communication

The University of Texas at Austin

Creative Issues in Interactive Advertising

• I. Interactive Creative Concepts

• II. Creative and “Clicking”

• III. Creative and Brand Building

• IV. What is an Effective IAd?

I. Interactive Creative Concepts

• A. Creative Organizations • 1. Traditional agency • 2. Interactive agency • 3. In-house • 4. Media organization

• B. DoubleClick Example • 1. Network seller for banners • 2. New sponsorships

– creative team just for sponsorship help

– [URL: www.shockwave.com]

I. Interactive Creative Concepts

• C. Interactive vs. Traditional Creative • 1. No fixed “time unit” as in radio/tv

• 2. Not static as in a print page

• 3. Banners start like outdoor but end differently

• 4. Creative rotation issues as in radio/tv

• 5. Specialized creative demands of buttons, banners, sponsorships, content sites, etc.

• 6. Games (7Up e.g.) provide for extended creative involvement

• 7. What else?

I. Interactive Creative Concepts

• D. Creative Rules of Thumb • 1. Bigger is better (large type, e.g.) • 2. Color your world--sparingly. • 3. Faster beats fancier. • 4. Content is king. • 5. Small bytes go down easier. • 6. If you don’t have something good to say,

don’t say anything. – Roger Black, Web Sites That Work, Adobe Press,

1997

I. Interactive Creative Concepts

• E. Style • “...the Web is one of the most restrictive canvases ever

offered to an artist.”

– useable area smaller than a hand span

– color palette is less than 256 colors

– need for smallest file sizes

– will force a return to “pure style”

» Peter Gillespie from VOICE Creative Engineering before the

International Design Festival in Glasgow, 1996

I. Interactive Creative Concepts

• F. Changes in Format – 1. Banner originally ubiquitous– 2. New formats such as “skyscraper” – 3. Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB)

• a. Sets Standards for the industry such as banner size

• b. Has new formats standardized as of March 2001

• http://www.iab.net

II. Creative and “Clicking”

• A. Ways to Determine Banner Strategies:

• 1. Use “common sense”

• 2. Do what everyone else is doing

• 3. Try everything and measure results

• 4. Learn from those who have measured results

II. Creative and “Clicking

• B. Banner Issues:

• 1. Where on the page should it reside?

• 2. How long should it stay there?

• 3. How often should it be seen?

• 4. What words are most effective?

• 5. If it is not a standard size, what size?

• 6. Should animation be used?

• C. DoubleClick Top Ten Tips: • 1. Target, target, target • 2. Pose questions • 3. Use bright colors • 4. Home is not always sweet • 5. Location, location, location • 6. Use animation • 7. Use cryptic messages • 8. Call to action • 9. Avoid banner burnout (after exp. #4, 1%

click) • 10. Measure beyond click (e.g., fulfillment)

– [URL: www.doubleclick.com]

II. Creative and “Clicking

II. Creative and “Clicking

• D. Philip Ward Burton’s “Which Ad

Pulled Best”--the “traditional

rules” • 1. Offer a major benefit

• 2. Make it easy to see and read

• 3. Establish audience identity

• 4. Attract by being “new”

• 5. Be believable

• 6. Stress what is unique

II. Creative and “Clicking

• E. Ron Richards’ 4 Major Imperatives: • 1. Announce a news story, signal a hot issue

or disaster, and offer a breakthrough or extraordinary results.

• 2. Reset the standard that the buyer should expect, demonstrate uniqueness, or make an offer or guarantee.

• 3. Offer the gift of critical learning • 4. Create urgency.

– Ron Richards, President, ResultsLab

– [URL: www.resultslab.com]

III. Creative and Brand Building

• A. I/Pro Study on Banners

• 1. 42% (n=500 respondents) of users never look at

banners [Mary Meeker, Internet Advertising Report, 1996].

• B. David Ogilvy, Confessions... – “...the market you are advertising to is not just a

crowd, but a passing parade.”

III. Creative and Brand Building

• C. Milward-Brown Study:

– Internet Advertising Bureau Slide Show

• [URL: www.iab.net]

III. Creative and Brand Building

III. Creative and Brand Building

III. Creative and Brand Building

III. Creative and Brand Building

III. Creative and Brand Building

III. Creative and Brand Building

III. Creative and Brand Building

III. Creative and Brand Building

III. Creative and Brand Building

III. Creative and Brand Building

IV. What is an Effective IAd?

• A. Four Corners Effective Banners site

at: www.whitepalm.com

IV. What is an Effective IAd?

• A. The following 3 animated banners appeared in Yahoo when people

searched on the keyword phrase "Starship Troopers" during the month the movie opened

(November 1997). • B. Can you guess which banner has

over twice the click-through as the other two?

IV. What is an Effective IAd?

•

•

IV. What is an Effective IAd?

IV. What is an Effective IAd?

• A. A Good CTR • 1. A good CTR is dependant upon many factors, including the

banner design and the content of the web site the banner is supposed to represent. In an economic model, the CTR is a reflection of advertising (the banner exposures). Judging the effectiveness of a CTR then becomes a reaction of advertising vs. revenue.

• 2. A site selling a $5 knick-knack may not consider a 62:1 CTR to be acceptable, while a site selling something expensive, such as real estate, may consider it to be very good.

• 3. The basic idea behind the CTR is getting lost in the chase for an ever lower number. A CTR is merely a ratio of exposures to visitors via a banner. In the above case with the two vendors, a CTR of 62:1 may be good IF those visitors are translating into sales. Lousy if they aren't.

IV. What is an Effective IAd?

• B. High Brand/Ad Awareness and Recall

• C. High Attitude Toward the Banner

• D. High Intentions to Action

• E. High Purchase/Behavior Rate