Rob Gatto, CEO of Pointroll (provider of digital marketing services for interactive advertising), recently posted an article on Ad Age’s Digital Next titled “It’s Not the Size, It’s How You Use It.” Provocative title? Yes, but perhaps not in the way that first comes to mind. If you’ve been tasked with creating effective online display ads you know that it’s not easy to break through the on-page chaos of content, advertising, lists of “relevant” links and enough visual noise to make even the most driven user to click off and away. How you use the space you’ve been “given” is the ultimate challenge.
Or is it?
Gatto goes on to support his title with this bold statement: “Putting the Creativity Back Into Online Display Advertising.” He asks us to consider that it’s not the size at all, but the stuff inside the IAB approved pixel width and height. Maybe you’ve been schooled to believe — and to create toward — the concept that online display and disruption don’t play well together. Studies have shown that synergy between on-page content and display ad content, and by that I’m referring to look-and-feel or “creative,” increases the click-through of these ads. So what are we to do when challenged with injecting our work with creativity? Well, the author’s got an answer for that too.
He suggests that new ad formats might be well and good in engaging users and improving the user experience but size is not the solution. He insists on “a resurgence of creative.” And in his insistence he indicates what that might look like, using four broad categories where creativity can, and must, have a place in redefining what is possible with online display advertising. See if you don’t agree.
Redefine Creative for Digital Advertising
As the digital landscape evolves from a small number of circumscribed touchpoints to a more fluid experience across devices, locations, and activities, campaigns must shift their focus from platforms and formats to people: finding the right audience wherever it may be, and delivering creative that audiences will respond to.
Engage Consumers with Dynamic, Interactive Creative
Invite consumers into an ongoing brand relationship that both fits their current context and experience, and actually adds value to one or both.
Measure, Optimize, Repeat
As campaigns span platforms, so must our approach to marrying creativity with analytics. Constant technological and creative innovation is key.
Make an Impression
With so many ways to understand and target audiences, so many ways to reach them, and so many ways to channel our creative energy from mobile and tablet to social to out-of-home, we have an unprecedented opportunity to put our creativity to use in service of the brands we represent.