RSSFlash banner ads
08 Oct 2007 6 Comments
Click here. Click here. Click here.
The general inclination of a user is to ignore banner ads. We are far more cynical about online marketing now, so, if the main aim of an ad banner is to engage users, increase the clickthrough rate and increase brand awareness then the banner should be more than just relevant content and pretty animations.
Recently I’ve seen a great banner for the Worldwide Wildlife Fund. It requests:
Can you spot the tiger?
using a set of binoculars, which zooms in on the forest background, but after a few seconds of trying (and failing) the message pops up
Difficult, isn’t it
Then it prompts you to click to adopt a tiger while you still can. I mean, I would, but my flat’s too small, and my current feline occupants probably wouldn’t be too happy about it – but basically I liked it; it creates awareness of their campaign in a clever and engaging way, while appealing to the user to click.
We have the skills to create innovative interactivity in a banner that will capture the user’s interest, but there are a few things I think are required to make this happen.
Awareness – a greater awareness by everyone involved in the project of what can be achieved, using the available technology and subsequent timescales, will mean a smoother process and a more effective outcome.
Research – If we spend more time considering who is the target market, what are their interests, what would capture their attention and therefore make them click on the banner, then we are a step closer to creating an effective ad.
Concept creation - time spent on producing clever and appealing banner concepts should not just involve the design department; Marketing and account management have very valuable input on how we could achieve successful banners.
If at first you don’t succeed, refer to the instruction manual
Paul’s post got me thinking about best practices for the Flash banners we create.
Adobe’s provided some basic instructions on building banners – Adobe Flash Best Practices – Advertising with Flash
I think we should take it a step further and, to a certain extent, standardise how we build banners. I’d like to consider the points below, and get some feedback/comments from everyone.
Optimum frame rate
Considering likely computer performance, resultant file size, as well as appearance, how many frames per second should we create the file at?
(I’m just going to copy this in from an email Paul sent round)
“About magic frame rate numbers: Recommended fps values for your FLA document are either 21 or 31, otherwise known as the “magic frame rate numbers”. The reason for these values is that the default document setting of 12 fps is more often than not too slow for tween animations, resulting in “jerky” motion. So most of the time it needs to be higher. In addition, it has been found that two SWFs published to the same fps, will run slower on the Mac Flash Player than on the PC Flash Player, given equivalent processing power. Sometimes the lag time is quite noticeable. To counteract this “bug”, we must set our FLA to either 21, 31, 41, 51 or 61 fps to negate this effect. But of course most computer processors cannot keep up with a frame rate higher than 31 fps, or performance issues in the Flash Player may occur. Thus it is advised that only frame rates of either 21 or 31 be used for most FLA documents. Only if you are running an FLV video player in your browser with the video at high resolution (larger than 320×240) would it be advisable to drop the frame rate of your FLV down to 12-15 in order to conserve performance. See Tom Green’s CMX article for more details on video performance in Flash.”
Taken from: http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?page=2&cid=C1379
Animation length
What is the average amount of time a user spends on the page, and how should we translate this to the length of the banner ad? I think IAB recommends 15 seconds for the length of the animation – IAB Rich Media Standards
Duration of each message
On average how many seconds does it take a user to read the message on a banner ad? I normally make this 3 – 4 seconds, but deciding on a value would ensure consistency throughout all the Flash banners and animated gifs we create.
cliiiiiiiiiickTaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggg
Okay – and then there’s the ‘clickTag’…(cue dramatic music). It’s quite simple…..we set the button action in the flash to go to the simple value ‘clickTag’
Kind of like this:
on (release) {
getURL(clickTag, "_blank");
}
So, when the flash is embedded in the page, the page then tells flash what this ‘clickTag’ value should be, i.e. the correct URL with all the tracking bits and pieces added. Another thing to be aware of is which format of ‘clickTag’ should be used; The majority of times the ad server network requests ‘clickTag’ be used, however ‘ClickTag’, ‘ClickTAG’ and ‘clickTAG’ are also used.
Oh, and another thing
One thing that can cause problems when creating the banners, and make it a more time consuming process, is not having the full technical information right from the beginning; Where are the banners going? What are the file size limits? What are all the dimensions required? What is the clickTag format? etc.
If all departments work together from the beginning to verify all the information required this will cause less problems and changes after the banners have been built.
Anyway…
I’ve waffled on for quite a wee bit now, but hopefully this is a step in the right direction for us to continue discussing how to improve our processes to create effective online ads.
6 Comments (+add yours?)
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Oct 09, 2007 @ 19:55:57
This is brilliant Elaine! The banner thing is something we really need to get to grips with and this is ideal as a starter – Martin and I have started working on a briefing approach to make sure we get banners right – I’ll let you see it first when it’s close to done to get your thoughts.
Keep it up!
Oct 11, 2007 @ 09:23:58
Your blog is really looking good now and that Flash stuff is brilliant work. What’s your stats looking like ?
Oct 11, 2007 @ 09:36:10
I set up google analytics yesterday and have:
9 Visits
2 Absolute Unique Visitors
19 Pageviews
2.11 Average Pageviews
00:00:57 Time on Site
77.78% Bounce Rate
22.22% New Visits
I think pretty much everything is from Equator, but in Firestats I had one hit from del.icio.us
Mar 16, 2009 @ 08:23:45
Hello,
Super post, Need to mark it on Digg
Have a nice day
Saurooon