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Best Practice Guide for Digital Advertising
An effective online presence and creative execution of one's brand is essential to stay ahead of competitors in today's online society. It is one thing to merely implement an online advertising strategy and a complete different thing to optimize this for maximum results. At last there is some clarity on how to achieve this.
The Online Publishers Association's (OPA’s) objective for 2009 is to continue to highlight the importance of quality digital design. Ben Wagner CEO of Stonewall + and OPA Head of Creative, in collaboration with leading digital figureheads, has created a Best Practice Guide for Online Advertising, highlighting key factors which determine effective online creative.
Brand Prominence
Ensure that the brand is prominently displayed on all frames
Frame Messaging
Each frame should attempt to communicate the following:
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Product brand awareness
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Communicate message/benefits/differentiation
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Communicate brand like-ability/reason to purchase or call to action
Ad Effectiveness
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Think carefully about using rich media, particularly “reveal” ad formats.
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Viewers are confronted with content and don’t have time to interact with obscure creative. 3 seconds is the gap you have.
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Understand your audience, a rich media campaign won’t work for a low band user.
Message Simplicity
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This is an ad, not a brochure. Focus on the message and use the creative concept to push the message home.
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Don’t over elaborate with complexity and multiple message points, 7 words is the maximum for your message.
Include a URL in the advertising
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Enough said
Engage, but don’t make people work for the message
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Viewers should never have to labour to understand your ad
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Interaction with the ad should be easy, not complicated
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Use interactive formats to reveal more information via drill-down or roll-over.
Persuasion vs Awareness
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If your objective is persuasion rather than awareness, be careful not to annoy the site visitor
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Avoid highly obtrusive ads
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Remember targeting is critical - don’t show irrelevant ads to people
Integrate online creative concepts with offline
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Use creative elements that are consistent with offline ads.
Try to avoid “border” ads – ad sizes that frame the content of a webpage
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They train site visitors to focus on the centre of the page and tune out ads.
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Rectangle ad sizes do not frame content and are therefore more noticeable.
Test creative vs placement
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Online offers flexibility around changing creative and placement environments that other media channels don’t offer
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Test creative options and see which executions are giving you the best results, ie. Click through ratios.
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