Every Friday, I’ll post an interview with someone far more
knowledgeable than myself on specific marketing and publicity
subjects. This week, web producer Alex Sturtevant on The Elusive Yet
Omnipresent Banner Ad.
Alex Sturtevant is a Producer at NYC-based agency thehappycorp global.
He is the lead for many digital projects for clients such as
Cadbury-Schweppes, Miraval Resorts, Idealist.org, and Brooklyn Brewery.
Alex also managed the creative for the 87th Annual Art Directors Club
Awards Gala, and has previously worked for clients including Universal
Music, Dell, Coca-Cola, J.P. Morgan, Paramount Vantage and Vivendi
Games.
On average, what would a basic banner ad campaign cost to design and implement?
As
frustrating as it is, I am not going to answer this question. There are
myriad factors that influence the price of a campaign, ranging from the
complexity of animation to the size of the media buy. I don’t think
it’s very useful to try and pinpoint an average price point, but I
would stress that I have been amazed by ads done on the cheap and
nobody should think that they are necessarily priced out of the game.
For a venue marketing one performance, how far out (time-wise) would you start a banner ad campaign? One month? One week?
I’m
not a media planner, but this depends on what you are trying to
accomplish with the campaign. If the goal is to have users purchase
tickets online by clicking on the ad, then it is a good idea to have
two-three weeks running up to the show. If an advertiser is trying to
generate buzz around a performance or drive offline ticket sales, then
you may want to begin a little earlier.
For LVHRD, a series of live events for the creative community in NYC, we typically begin running ads 3-5 weeks prior to an event.
In
your opinion, would it be more effective for a venue to produce a
banner ad campaign announcing its entire season or to target specific
performances?
Again, this is really a question that needs to
be preceded with a decision about positioning. Are you trying to sell
tickets? Or raise the profile of the venue? Target a specific audience?
Banner ads should be treated just like any other piece of marketing
collateral.
How important is placement? Obviously, arts
presenters/record labels would want their ads in the arts sections (or
is that not so obvious?), but does right/left/top/bottom of the webpage
matter?
There are two types of placement – what section of a
site the ad lives on, and where on the page the ad sits. In terms of
the first issue, the homepage is usually a better bet than any interior
page (even the arts section) because the dropoff rate grows and grows
as you move deeper into a site. End of the day, you want the most eyes
on your ad as possible. For placement on the page, it is always a good
idea to have the ad above the fold (i.e. a user can see the ad without
scrolling). There are technical details about how often your ad will
appear on a page (“share of voice”), but again, that’s really a
question for a media planner.
What are the markers of
effectiveness for banner ads? Click-throughs, time spent viewing the
page advertised? What kind of report can organizations expect from the
sites they advertise on?
The most reliable metric for
success is clickthrus. All sites will provide their advertisers of a
breakdown of total impressions (number of unique visitors who have seen
the ad), clickthru rate (number of users that click on the ad), and
clickthru percentage of total users. Successful, national banner ad
campaigns usually average 0.2% clickthru rates.
For rich media
ads (that expand, include video content, etc), there are additional
metrics such as time on ad, interactions with the ad, and so forth.
These become important as these ads don’t necessarily need to drive
users to an external site to be successful.
Are clients advertising on blogs versus mainstream newspaper sites now? What are the benefits/drawbacks of advertising on blogs?
Blogs
are a great tool for advertisers. Many of the most influential and
popular sites on the internet are blogs, since the content is refreshed
on a consistent basis throughout the day. That’s not to say that nytimes.com isn’t a great place to advertise, but blogs are a fantastic and more cost-effective resource.
This
is especially true in industries like the arts, as oftentimes you are
marketing to a niche audience. thehappycorp has recently started a blog
publishing network called Largetail, that includes a number of likeminded culture/arts/media blogs such as LVHRD, Coolhunting, The Winger, and PSFK.
Working with the Largetail network allows advertisers to reach the
elusive but coveted demographic of creative professionals, media makers
and urban influencers. We are able to offer a range of custom programs
to help acquaint our readers with a brand in a unique, relevant and
meaningful manner.
You told me once that those irritating
ads that float over your screen are the ones everyone asks for. Why are
they effective? Doesn’t everyone think they’re annoying? The only time
I ever click on them is when I can’t find the X and hit Shrek’s ear or
whatever by mistake.
Rich media ads. A blessing and a
curse. I admit that I have had just about enough of the dancing cowboys
encouraging me to refinance, but these ads can be a great way to engage
users in new and creative ways as well. Video content is always
compelling. At thehappycorp we have also done projects recently that
used an XML feed to send new and updated content to the banner ads
throughout the life of the campaign. This would be useful if you wanted
to advertise a full season at a venue, but display rotating information
depending upon what performances were happening on a specific date.
On
the other end of the spectrum, I feel like I’m so used to movement in
these ads that when I see a static one I’m totally disinterested.
Should organizations not even bother if they can’t afford
animation/video in their ads?
Not at all. That’s like
saying that since you can’t afford to buy a Superbowl ad, it’s not
worth running a print ad in the Times. There are lots and lots of
creative people in digital advertising that are making compelling
banners based on good ideas and great creative, not flashy content.
Doug Jaeger, the founder and Creative Director of thehappycorp, won
numerous international awards for a campaign he did for Doctors Without
Borders that included almost no animation at all.
Most effective banner ad campaign you’ve ever encountered?
I
think the “click here to win a free iPod!” ads have absurdly high
clickthru rates, but I just can’t stomach endorsing them. I think the
multiple-placement takeover that Apple did on the New York Times
homepage earlier this year was extremely clever.
Least effective?
There are plenty of ads that I don’t like personally, but that’s not to say they’re not effective…!
What’s
“the next big thing” in banner ad design and engineering? I’m picturing
the shark hologram that jumps out at Marty in Back to the Future II.
Close
– it’s actually going to be a squid hologram. I think the age of
tricking users into clicking on ads has come and gone, and advertisers
are going to have to start offering the user something useful. That
might just be clear information – name of product, price, availability
– or it might be something more complex like being able to check flight
availability in a banner, but either way, give the user something they
can use.