The Catch 22 of display advertising
New research by the IAB suggests that there is indeed a branding effect of online display advertising. This in itself is nothing new. Countless studies have showed that, but somehow the key message has been lost on a lot of industry people and advertisers.
Perhaps they are just looking for excuses not to value online display advertising and thus put pressure on price (a strategy a lot of web media are stupid enough to play along with). It’s certainly worth a thought.
While you’re thinking about that, the real interesting point here is talking about growth in supply versus growth in demand. Because we keep missing the point there:
It may be that online display advertising will continue to grow in 2009. But given that supply of inventory is likely to grow more, on a net, yield basis the industry relying 100 % on online advertising still has a massive challenge that just got even bigger.
It’s the Catch 22 of online display advertising.
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5 comments
Is it not the accuracy, degree of targeting and measurebility that has driven display ads towards search ads, and away from branding?
Can you have both?
To some degree it is. Especially since media has been so keen to focus on the hard aspects of display advertising and have neglected the softer branding story.
One of the things I still don’t get is why, with less than stellar measuring methods, it’s more accepted to argue branding value on tv and print than on online. It just doesn’t add up for me.
It doesn’t add up for me either, but one could argue, that old media are better at branding them selves as a branding media, than the new ones.
But take a look at the average banner ad. It is all focused on selling and getting the click. Not a lot of engagement and value for the consumer. If you message is selling and pushing products, then branding becomes arbitrary and impossible to reach.
Yes, you’re right. But the real question here still remains: Why has new media jumped on this boat in the first place? Why haven’t they been telling the story about the branding capabilities of display advertising?
Instead they have let advertisers, creative agencies and media agencies drive them towards conversion, conversion and conversion, which has opened up an even bigger market for search and left the banner as a somewhat unsexy entity. It’s a shame as the banner could be truly useful.
Again, couldn’t agree more. I’m a big fan of contextuality in banner ads, as they may add to the overall positive experience of the content.
Banner ads are stuck in the middle and online media are currently siticefied with the situation, as they are profitable and have been for many years. But as you mentioned in your post, the amount of pageviews available will increase more than the budgets over the coming years, and this will put pressure on the online media to reinvent them selves. They will undoubtedly move towards a higher degree of targeting, but will they have the guts to not push a sale, but to get potential costumers to take part of a conversation and to be part of the brand?
And on that note, will media companies have the gut to suggest this change and assist the brands in measuring the the brand engagement and the conversation?
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