We Need to Make Better Mobile Banners

We’ve been reading about the death of the 320x50/300x50 unit for years, but these ‘baby banners’ aren’t going anywhere. Baby banners still comprise 60% of mobile ad inventory. And most of them look terrible.

I just read an article in Digiday about mobile display and thought this passage was really relevant:

Twitter and Facebook [are] platforms that have done a better job of integrating advertising into their experiences than most mobile publishers. A year or two ago, agencies were figuring out how to buy mobile display and what type of apps to build. Now, they’re trying to figure out how to put their clients in front of users in ways that are more relevant to how people are using their devices.

Source: Digiday

What year do you think this article is from? I’ll give you a hint: 2012. This paragraph is four years old and yet it could have been written four weeks ago. Still today it feels like agencies haven’t fully cracked the code in mobile to adapt the creative idea to this platform.

So before you write your next mobile banner brief, think about how much heavy lifting you’re actually asking your 320x50 mobile banners to do.

Here are a few creative guidelines (and vaguely related gifs) that we’ve seen drive better work.

1. Don’t ask people to click/tap

Here are three reasons why:

• People don’t click on banner ads. The latest Google Benchmark for a 320x50 was 0.12% which is 12 out of every 10,000 impressions. (The odds of finding a pearl in an oyster are about 1 in 10,000. So not that far off.)
• Upwards of 50% of clicks/taps on mobile are accidental. Which takes a small pool and makes it smaller. 50% smaller.
• Clicks/taps don’t equal sales. But you don’t need to take my word for it, check out this Nielsen study from 2011.

The source of all those accidental taps

2. Use Fewer Words

Your mobile banner should have 5 words max. Absolute max.

How many words are on your mobile banners? I’m sure you haven’t thought about it. But I bet you can cut down.

There are two reasons to use the absolute minimum number of words possible.

• 320x50 is a very very very small canvas. It’s less than 25% the size of its desktop cousin, the 728x90
• Consumers have been conditioned to know where mobile ads appear on the screen — and to avoid them. Which means you only have a split second to convey your message
• As it turns out, Humans can process about 5 words per second.

This banner ad needs to be at least…three times this big!

2a. Make it Legible

It should go without saying. But it’s also worth repeating. Mixed metaphors are hard. Look at this Papa John’s ad:

About 50% of the copy is readable. On a very large desktop screen. And I’m trying.

Besides using 5 or fewer words, here’s how you make mobile banners more legible:

• Use 12pt font size as the bare minimum. This is generally the size of legal disclaimers. And you don’t want to go smaller than that for ad copy.
• Higher resolution phones require higher font sizes. Always err on the side of bigger
• Stick to one font type.

We’re almost done. But if you need a break, check out more gifs at http://madmenintegrated.tumblr.com/

3. Use Established, Distinctive Brand Cues

You’re not going to convince anyone of anything new with a 320x50. But you can reinforce an existing brand memory structure and increase salience. These three examples were placed on a movie listing and showtimes mobile site:

They work because they’re solidifying the campaign strategy that “Moments are Better With” M&M’s in a contextually relevant environment. (And look! only 4 words)

4. Declutter

Because we have such limited real estate, a clean layout for a 320x50 banner is really important.

Stick to the essentials only: the message (as succinct as possible), brand imagery, and if necessary the product image. Let’s first walk through an example of what not to do:

Here we have:

• A photo of Bob the Employee (I’m very unclear why they felt compelled to name him in the bottom right of his photo)
• A quote (ostensibly from Bob) about why he likes working at TD Ameritrade
• The RTB “Do right by your career.”
• The CTA button to fill out a job application for a retail investment institution on your mobile phone.
• Brand Logo
• The second RTB below the logo

Wow. that’s a lot. This tiny mobile banner ad is basically expected to perform against the entire path to conversion from awareness to consideration to conversion. I think it’s asking too much.

Here are two examples of clutter-free ads that consumers can fully process in a split second

They’re so simple because each only has 3 elements:

• Brand Logo
• Product image
• Very short copy (or in the case of Nike, just the name of the product)

Most importantly, each element is clear and fully legible. I’m not recommending that you have to stick to this exact format but pressure test with your creative team so that you know exactly what you’re trying to communicate and that the design is as simple as possible.

So there you have it…

Four straightforward creative tips to make mobile banners resonate. Congratulations, you’ve earned yourself a Muppets gif