Nice ad right, well if it were a display ad it would be a flashing mess of disgustingness that everyone would hate.
A couple of weeks back I had the pleasure of attending the DPAC II conference here in NYC. The overwhelming message that I heard was that while display advertising was essential to publishers and advertisers, the current state of display advertising did not provide a platform for the long term success of their business. This discussion came rushing back to me today, when I read Darren Herman's post on the continued relevance of display marketing.
Darren's reasons why display remains relevant and essential:
- No replacement - We've got search and display, nothing else is even close...at this point, or at any point in the near term
- Scale - Standard units and organizations that efficiently price, serve and track those units
- Comprehension - Clients understand what display ads are and what they do
- Works - Do it right you get return
I agree on each of these points and at DPAC advertisers and publishers seemed resigned to the fact that display in all its "inefficient" glory was absolutely necessary. Still the debate rages on between agencies like Weiden Kennedy who would just rather throw in the towel on branded display, while Neo@Ogilvy are clamoring for more display focusing on relevance through targeting. The fact is, display is not going anywhere, but in order for it to grow it must evolve beyond its current targeting obsessed state.
Our position at Sympact is that display will evolve and that the pairing of content and contexto-personal relevance within display is a winning combination. There is ample evidence that targeting provides a historical perspective on the individual viewer and semantic/context cues on the page itself can assist in pairing an ad contextually. However, the issue remains, having targeted to this granular level the advertiser and publisher are left with a myriad of audience slivers too small to allocate creative spend towards.So what is the solution?
The solution, is to use all of this available data as ad content. That dynamic content when paired with a brand logo and message delivers a highly relevant, personally tailored message with the kind of scale that gets the attention of big audiences, big brands and big publishers. The next evolution of display is tailoring, and those companies that make ad tailoring simple will win.
At least that's one path. The other is too make consistently brilliant display ad units like Apple does. That'll get their attention, it just the cost vs reach is out of whack. The fact is display as an advertising delivery mechanism is here to stay, how it is displayed remains in flux. Those companies, like Sympact, who are increasing returns and looking into how display converts beyond the click will be the reason for the ongoing and expanded use of display advertising.
