If you've met us, you'll already know that we're a part of the 'Clinic' family. Well, we're very excited to announce that Oneshoe is now wholly integrated within our parent brand. As we mature along with the rest of the digital industry, we find that we are working on creativity that crosses all disciplines.
It's complete integration for a completely integrated world. So please make your way to Clinic here.
The online advertising market is maturing, but is in danger of burning out instead of aging gracefully. Video is part of the next internet land grab, and online video advertising is likely to bear the brunt of this rush.
The idea of paid banner advertising was a novelty of the early dotcom days that was fuelled by dotcom boomers building their business models solely around advertising revenue. They did not consider that they needed decent content and sustainable audiences if they were to survive. The drive to shift advertising inventory on their sites was done without consideration for the tastes and attention span of their visitors.
As a result resistance to web advertising grew – with a click through blindspot developing in the header of every site. The banner was replaced by the super-banner, and we’ve had a proliferation of new ad formats since. This has not been helped by poor advertising creative and ill-considered media placement. User resistance to online advertising has been driving down interaction and clickthrough rates.
One of the culminations of this was the development of ad-blocking browser plugins and the inclusion of ad server cookies on the radar of spyware companies. Advertising was seen as so intrusive into a web user’s experience that it could be considered on a par with spam and viruses. Install any anti-spyware software and you’re likely to be warned about the potential effects on your online advertising viewing.
The equivalent movement in TV has been the timeshifted tv viewing, with the ability to avoid traditional advertising slots.
With the rise of video advertising formats – pre and post roll advertising will not currently be able to be avoided. The challenge that the digital creative advertising industry faces is to avoid the easy route of ‘they have to watch it so we’ll hit them between the eyes’ with brash and ill-considered advertising.
Creating new ad formats will always intrigue and provide short term conversion improvements, but the quality of media targeting and creative executions will be important in ensuring new ad formats work.
Taking the view that any click is a good click will lead to viewer fatigue. Overselling media space to untargeted viewers will turn
them off and they will find ways to avoid the message.
Web users will always find a way to do what they want and avoid what they don’t. There is going to be attrition on new video advertising formats.
It might simply be a ‘pre-roll blindspot’ that we all evolve to filter advertising, or a technological solution that will enable visitors to strip out ads,
or even a business model that attracts the visitors to ad-free viewing.
Whatever way it happens, it will be down to the creative and media industry to improve the experience of the online video user. Applying the model of the standard banner ad to the video ad will devalue the format – and it’ll take less time than it did for the 468 banner.
Guy Hatton