As someone who has been in the trenches of programmatic creative since the beginning, it is exciting to see how the industry has been pulling together to develop best practices that will make advertising more efficient, effective and engaging. As one of the authors contributing to the development of the recently announced IAB Dynamic Content Ad Standard, we at Spongecell are well aware of how pivotal a moment in time this is.
The standard will facilitate smarter creative customization based on audience data harvesting and environment at scale, which will generate greater results for marketers. As Alanna Gombert, Senior Vice President, Technology and Ad Operations, IAB, and General Manager of the IAB Tech Lab, was recently quoted in AdExchanger, the industry will “see more creative ads, and more of an appetite to run them because they will be easier to deploy.”
Because of these advances, banners can now be a key driver in brand advertising. BBDO’s recent white paper, “Banner Beater ” really makes this case. It aligns with the recent guidance of the IAB Dynamic Content Ad Standard, which offers best-of-industry authoring practices to allow maximum flexibility for mobile and desktop ad environments. Combined with the enhanced, always-on consumer feedback loop to ensure maximum relevance, advertisers now have the ability to build equity with maximum impact and efficiency like never before.
Arguably the most important finding coming out of the BBDO story is that brand-building banners can bore into a consumer’s subconscious and rest there as emotional memories without active processing. While attention spans are certainly diminishing, consumers do process information faster. Nowadays, marketers have about three seconds to get someone’s attention, therefore we can no longer get away with lengthy animations, instead, they will need to get to the point quickly and concisely with consistent branding and a specific call to action. Because consumers spend increasingly more time on mobile, a smaller visual canvas, quick attention-grabbers are even more vital. Last year, the IAB published its LEAN standards at the height of the ad blocking controversy. The renaissance of the banner for brand building dovetails nicely with LEAN and should actually trigger consumers to engage.
