The Case for Better Display Ads
Standard banners are the Barney Rubble of digital advertising. Rich media & Video are Fred Flintstone, their louder, flashier best friend. Banner ads work hard to fulfill their role in the funnel, and, like Barney Rubble, we always feel like they could do more if given the opportunity.
Last week BBDO released a white paper I co-authored on how to create and measure brand-building banner ads. It’s really good. You should read the full paper here. Or, here’s the short version.
Defining the problem
In 2015, Banner ads were a $11.6 billion industry according to eMarketer. (That’s billion with a B.) By 2019, that number is expected to jump to $17.7 billion, a 52% increase. The key takeaway: this is big business and we need to make work that works in a medium that’s far from disappearing.
Let’s be honest with ourselves. Creatives don’t like making banners for two main reasons:
- It’s never as simple as you think. Whether it’s the file size limitations that mean we can’t do the animation we want or the 6 additional rounds of review (both internal and external), everything takes more time than we thought it would.
- Creatives think of banners as only Direct Response. That’s partially our fault with the language we use. “Make the CTA bigger.” “Come up with a more click bait-y headline.” “Can we add another product benefit?” Gross. I don’t blame them.
- Banners aren’t going to win a Cannes Lion. (Though in reality that’s not the case: this Post-it retargeting banner campaign, for example won three lions including a gold in 2015. And Proximity London won a gold creative effectiveness Lion for their Economist work in 2016. )
OK — it was three reasons. Let’s take a GIF break:
Make the Work better: The Banner B.E.A.T.
We did a ton of research to try to do two things:
- Understand what banners need to look like in order to effectively build brand salience and increase Fame, Fluency, and Feeling.
- Minimize time spent in creative development and review.
And here’s what we came up with: four guidelines that serve as the foundation for brands and agencies to quickly develop brand-building standard banner assets:
The overriding creative principle is simple: Think of banner ads like a billboard on the highway. You only have mere moments to capture attention and convey your message
Branding Always Present
Brand logo or brand name should always be visible. Assume someone will only look at an ad for a second or two. They still need to be able to make a connection between the ad and the brand.
Ease the Read
Maximum of 5–10 on screen at any given time. Again, assume viewers will only look at the banner for 1–2 seconds. We (humans) can only process 5 words per second. So let’s design for it. You can find some good examples on my post about making better mobile banners.
Assets Distinct to Brand
It’s not just about the brand logo. Iconic and well established characters, color schemes, imagery, and fonts are as powerful as logos in triggering brand memories.
Trigger the Campaign Idea
Banners don’t exist in a vacuum. Campaigns that reinforce the same message across media channels build mental availability and brand relevance, especially among light users (the most important segment to target according to Byron Sharp).
Read the full white paper. It’s got a lot of examples, 28 research sources cited and a lot more detail.
But it doesn’t have GIFs. So let’s take one more GIF break before we jump into The Most Important Part.
The Most Important Part: Creativity
Standing on their own, the B.E.A.T. guidelines move us from work that goes largely unnoticed to assets that are designed based on the way consumers actually interact with digital media.
But that’s not enough. Creativity is the most important ingredient that goes into making effective banners.
A banner that consists of a logo and tagline might follow B.E.A.T. guidelines but it will not help increase brand salience or mental availability. All advertising — and especially digital banner ads — requires creativity to make sure that the work doesn’t fall flat. Creativity is our secret sauce, the economic multiplier that allows us to punch above our weight in media and grow market share.
Look to other established media. Print & OOH are great sources of inspiration to capture attention and communicate messages fast. Check out The Gunn Report’s Bent/Straight or the work on D&AD.
That’s it. Banners don’t need to be stressful or complex or time consuming. But they do need to be creatively excellent. Which means that full service creative agencies shouldn’t expect to see banner briefs disappear anytime soon.
