Joseph warns that we have to be careful not to misuse or abuse data, such as the recent findings from Dynamic Logic on the effectiveness (or non-effectiveness) of skyscraper ads.
There are many great debates that will engage, entertain and enthrall modern man for as long as humanity will endure: Is there life after death? (Jon Edwards says this is affirmative); Is there intelligent life out there? (The box office says that Signs definitely point to yes); Does size matter? (The magic eight-ball tells you to ask again later).
Some time ago, Dynamic Logic published some interesting findings about skyscrapers not being all they were cracked up to be:
Dynamic Logic has found through analysis of the MarketNorms™ database that many of the new "Skyscraper" ad units are not performing as hoped. When the new format was introduced into the market last summer, expectations were high that the bigger format would translate into better effectiveness results. Data shows that this is not always the case. The performance of this format (which is tall and thin in shape, and typically presented along the right side of online content) appears to be driven in a large part by the placement of the advertiser's logo within the ad.
The explanation went on to highlight various scenarios in which the advertiser’s/brand’s logo was placed either at the top, bottom, or both top and bottom of the unit. The strongest results involved the dual logo placement, followed by the top logo placement, and in distant third place was the logo positioned at the bottom of the unit.
Make sense? It should. It’s what I refer to as “intuitively obvious” – a tautological way of saying, if you just think about it for a moment; it should come to you pretty easily. The only problem is that I have grave concerns about how many of us take the time to think about these things – either because we don’t have the time, or because we don’t take the time.
Part of this explanation fits into this intuitively obvious category. Often times, when the logo is placed at the bottom of the page, it falls below the fold. I don’t know how many of you would honestly admit that you never realized this before, but I’m prepared to raise my hand and ante up. More importantly, how many of your agency’s creative directors do you think were aware of this before? And how many arguments do you think you might have won trying to convince them otherwise without this invaluable piece of data in hand?
That’s just the service Dynamic Logic provides us free of charge, which is worth oodles of dollars in value. Unfortunately, I fear that many of us will either misinterpret this data, and/or will doom this knowledge to the bottomless pit euphemistically known as, “things to do.” In an industry where the medium is the metric; where we are only as strong as our weakest metric, we have to be so careful that this kind of data is not misused or even abused.
Case in point, a colleague sends me an e-mail titled, “Is bigger better?” The body of the e-mail contained the Dynamic Logic findings that I referenced just now. There were two connected reasons why this person sent me the e-mail:
- The title of the original article which contained the report was Bigger Ads Do Not Guarantee Effectiveness
- This person knows that I am a huge advocate of bigger units and larger ad formats – with a major bias towards full-screen advertising.
Let’s start with the first point. Lesson number one taught at copywriting school -- and I should know, because I never attended copywriting school -- is that an intriguing and provocative headline always helps to entice the window-shopping browser to find out more by reading the full article. One of the Journal’s infamous inaccuracies did just that a few months ago with their headline, Internet Ads Hit Rock Bottom; Some on AOL Are Free as Air, which was not referring to CPMs of zero, but in fact was referencing pay-per-performance deals. Another example is a previous Juice titled, Political Agendas, which did not cover threatened traditional agency executives as you might have thought, but instead talked about Ken Jarvis who won his primary campaign using the Internet for only $1 (unfortunately, he ended up losing the election. Can you imagine what would have happened had he spent $3?).
So, far be it for me to criticize our friends at Dynamic Logic for creating a snappy headline worthy of luring in potential readers. My concern, though, is that I wonder how many people did in fact read further, and how many of them might have interpreted this as being an indictment on larger ad units and sizes.
So let’s move on to the second point. I stand by my ground that if we ever want to legitimize this medium as a medium, we’re going to need to grow up in both size and stature, and present potential advertisers with a high-quality, consistent delivery vehicle worthy of garnering their brand dollars. It’s not going to happen with a 468x60. I’m not sure the answer is a skyscraper, either, but I’ll tell you one thing: Effectiveness measured in cost-per-pixels is not the way to go.
The answer is not a quantifiable metric; the solution rests in the hands – or more specifically fingers and mice -- of the creators of communication. I’ve seen so many outstanding skyscrapers that carefully and smartly leverage the vertical nature of the unit size in order to affect a quality-finished product. I’ve also seen my fair share of shoddy work where disconnected media folk purchased vertical units that their creative counterparts were either unable or unwilling to version accordingly.
So if it’s logo recognition you want, by all means go for the tandem top and bottom fixed position placement; however if it’s connecting with consumers’ hearts and minds that tickles your brand’s fancy, then you might want to consider a few supersized alternatives.
I’m a big believer in research, but I’m an even bigger believer in my gut, intuition and common sense, which reminds me that my profession is not a formula or equation, and although it is possible to reduce every masterpiece to a series of brushstrokes or pixels, it’s always the bigger picture on the bigger canvas that makes the biggest impression on its audience.