1) Think beyond creative

Changing creative standards time and again is not enough, no matter how rich the media is. Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Over the years, we have gone from static banners to animated GIFs, to rich media and high-quality video — and none have moved the engagement needle significantly. Creative isn’t the issue. We have to adjust other levers if we want to see any substantial change to CTRs and engagement rates. We have to start thinking differently about the importance of relevance and placement.

2) Relevance matters most

No matter how beautiful an ad is — how interactive and cool — if it’s not relevant to the consumer in the moment, it’s not going to engage them. Intent is everything. You could be targeting the right demographic in the right DMA at the right time of year — and the audience buy itself could be spot-on — but if the intent isn’t targeted in real-time, relevance is lost.

Targeting must go beyond audience and deeper into context in order to reach customers while they’re in a buying frame of mind. Think about search engine marketing, which captures a user’s search query and surfaces ads that are specific to that query. I saw an ad for Google recently that read: “You know who wants a haircut? People looking for a haircut.” Display advertising can learn something from this kind of intent targeting. The goal is to get so granular with our targeting that advertising becomes helpful rather than irrelevant and irritating.

3) Just try to look natural

Can we agree once and for all that the “golden triangle” is over? Why do we insist on putting ads along the top and down the right margin? It’s not effective. This may be one of the biggest drivers behind the native advertising movement.

Native advertising allows publishers to create advertising unique to their site or platform, so that ads fit seamlessly into the page. The ads often look like publisher content, although the best practice is to clearly identify them as ads. Examples of this include Sponsored Tweets, Sponsored Posts on Facebook and Google AdWords. Publishers like Slate, The Cheezburger Network, Funny or Die and Salon are offering native options, which tend to be unobtrusive and often helpful — or at least, entertaining or intriguing.

This is where advertiser and publisher heads should be, even if they can’t technically go native. Not everyone has resources to create their own platform, but it’s the right path — ads that don’t attempt to disrupt, but fit naturally into the flow of the user experience.

4) Cue the bugle

It may be premature to call the banner dead, but we have to stop using the same tired methods to revive it. No amount of glitter and glitz can make it work — we need to think beyond appearance at the root causes of banner blindness. If we can make display smart and relevant enough to be worth seeing, we can end the problem once and for all.

See on www.mediapost.com

“Blame my enteprenurial tendencies, but when I was experiencing Snow Fall, all I could see was stunning brand-advertising opportunities, that went beyond the dumb, commoditized advertising the Times is forced to put on its website. Why not embed a tasteful Land Rover ad or throw in one for Moncler? That is native advertising that actually allows organziations like the Times to live by their ethos and maintain the fidelity of their brand”-  Om Malik

See on gigaom.com

According to a report from research firm IDC, sales of desktop and laptop PC computers dropped a dramatic 14 percent in the first quarter of 2013 compared to a year ago, following the release of Windows 8. It was only expecting a 7.7 percent drop. We think this study shows that it is key for publishers to implement cross-screen monetization strategies.

“Instead of buying new laptops or desktops, people are buying tablets and smartphones, which serve as good-enough alternatives,” says a report from Business Insider.

Gartner also released its own report focusing on PC sales. It says that overall PC sales dipped 11.2 percent, and the trend of consuming content on smartphones and tablets is increasing.

While consumers are increasingly turning to smartphones and mobile devices, businesses have been utilizing them too, but they have mixed reactions.

According to a report in The Financial Times, “Tablets can cause corporate headaches,” businesses like the idea behind tablets because they’re cheaper than desktops or laptops, but often times they’re too complicated.

A portion of the article reads: “Adapting legacy workforce applications to be accessible from tablets can be very expensive. These need to be much simpler to use and robust – for example, not prone to cutting out if the user is on a train that enters a tunnel or enters a lift.”

Publishers, too, are increasingly switching screen sizes for newsroom and sales force uses.

Randy Parker, managing editor of the York Daily Record in Pennsylvania, recently spoke at America East 2013, a conference of newspaper tech and operations executives. He explained that 14 of his newsroom staffers now have iPads, and most editors and reporters have smartphones. In addition, his photographers are now using Nexus 7-inch tablets.

Kim Wilson, president and publisher of South Bend Tribune, said her sales team takes their iPads on the road with them, it saves them a lot of time, and allows them to pull up information on the road for advertisers.

Mel Taylor, founder of Mel Taylor Media, talked about how he launched BrigantineNow.com after Hurricane Sandy to provide aggregated information to the area. He used WordPress to create the site, and he chose a template that uses Responsive Web Design.

“Although the reduction in shipments was not a surprise, the magnitude of the contraction is both surprising and worrisome,” said David Daoud, IDC research director, Personal Computing, in a news release. “The industry is going through a critical crossroads, and strategic choices will have to be made as to how to compete with the proliferation of alternative devices and remain relevant to the consumer. Vendors will have to revisit their organizational structures and go to market strategies, as well as their supply chain, distribution, and product portfolios in the face of shrinking demand and looming consolidation.”

Asda has unveiled a weather responsive ad campaign for its George brand, featuring digital advertising banners which respond immediately…

See on www.thedrum.com

See on www.digiday.com

We were mentioned in this article….

DOES RESPONSIVE DESIGN AFFECT ONLINE AD INVENTORY?

Yes. More screen sizes mean more ad sizes, which means you could have more ad inventory to fill. Ad Networks such as ResponsiveAds.com are taking the lead by encouraging sites to sell their ad inventory in packages that include the full spectrum of mobile and standard-display ad sizes. Many sites are tackling this issue on their own and tasking their developers to create responsive ad spaces using clever CSS configurations.

See on www.pbs.org

There is no difference between content and advertising. Advertising IS content. Some of it is great, some of it isn’t. That’s it.

— Paul Adams (@Padday) March 26, 2013

This post triggered a controversial discussion on Twitter over whether all content is advertising or all advertising is content and vice versa. Here is the conversation:

@jeremyhead absolutely advertising is simply content that has paid for distribution.

— Paul Adams (@Padday) March 26, 2013

@cassiocassio I work with advertising agencies every day. Most content isn’t advertising, but all advertising is content.

— Paul Adams (@Padday) March 26, 2013

@jeremyhead @buffaloreynolds ‘content marketing’ makes no sense. People say marketers as content producers is new. It’s always been that way

— Paul Adams (@Padday) March 26, 2013

@johngapper @justordinaryjoe @mathewi why philosophically problematic? advertising is a subset of all content created.

— Paul Adams (@Padday) March 26, 2013

let me rephrase for clarity: all advertising is content. marketers and advertisers have always been content creators. it’s not new.

— Paul Adams (@Padday) March 26, 2013

We can understand how the implementation of native advertising, ads that runs in-stream with editorial content, can blur the line between content and advertising. After all, nobody can agree on the definition of native advertising industrywide.

We know that all content is not advertising. However, all advertising is content. The FTC recently updated its “Dot Com Disclosures” to state that all online ads, even ones in tweets, much be marked as such in the content of the ad.

Digiday recently asked a slew of publishers what they think the definition of native advertising is. Here are their responses:

Ryan Manion, CTO, Politico
It’s still being defined. You want to provide the advertiser with the best experience you can and also provide the best experience for the users who want to view those advertisements.

Will Pearson, president, Mental Floss
Native advertising is about taking what the advertiser is wanting to communicate and integrating it with what our users are expecting.

Matt Sanchez, CEO, Say Media
Native advertising is anything that takes on the form of the medium.

Tom Cochran, CTO, Atlantic Media
It’s similar to TV or movies. It’s a way to promote the content of our advertisers in a way that’s more ingrained way that’s built into the design of our properties.

Carolyn Bekkedahl, svp of digital media revenue, Meredith
Advertising that stems from a brand that is more than just one piece of creative. It can be video or text that robustly describes whet a product or service an advertiser has.

Mary Mucko, president of digital sales, Gannett
When we’re able to take advantage of the platform the advertiser’s on.

As we have previously mentioned, our perspective is that native advertising is Responsive Advertising plus scale.

Then Google launched Android as the FREE open OS that created much debate,

It there now a shift further that — “Carriers should be worried. They could become nothing more than “dumb pipes.”  Business Insider

See on www.businessinsider.com

While the majority of advertisers still have not used FBX, the social network’s real-time bidding exchange for serving retargeted ads, data shows Facebook is taking an ever-greater share of these impressions.

See on www.emarketer.com

Facebook Exchange (FBX), the real-time bidding platform that launched in 2012, partners with retargeting companies such as AdRoll to let advertisers purchase and deliver retargeting impressions on Facebook.

AdRoll partnered with Facebook early on after the launch of the Exchange. According to eMarketer, Facebook Exchange is increasing in popularity, and AdRoll alone has more than 700 brands advertising on the Facebook platform. Overall, the number of retargeted clicks Facebook has seen is rising.

The click-through rates for FBX ads was 40 percent less than other web retargeting ads, but the price per click came in at 80 percent lower than on Facebook.

“There’s still plenty of upside for Facebook retargeting advertisers, however. Cost per impression (CPM) and cost per click (CPC) were both significantly lower on Facebook, proving that the social site does offer some substantial monetary benefits, along with ride reach,” the summary from eMarketer says.

ResponsiveAds’ Insight:

Is the Facebook Exchange social re-targeting ad network the Trojan Horse for Facebook’s global monetization strategy?

Facebook has developed a plug-in for publishers’ websites so they can track readers’ behaviors. However, publishers aren’t the only ones who can track users’ behaviors. Facebook can, too.

The social network can place the most relevant ads on the page, but the publisher needs to open up their inventory to Facebook Exchange. This could be the first step toward programmatic premiums.

In addition, Facebook likes screen-shifting, and mobile is part of that bundle. It can be delivered to any screen at a premium CPM.

We think that ad currencies should not be based on channels, but rather the value of the ad impression at that particular moment and time. It’s no longer about the size or shape of the ad — it’s the ad’s effectiveness.

We believe that having one ad that transforms to match the RTB environment of DSPs and exchanges is the best way to go.

One option is to upload different creatives and SWAP them out for different sizes and shapes. The other choice is to have your brand agency on the dashboard, communicating in real time through the ad, just like Twitter.

For most — including the Atlantic, Politico, Gannett and others — it’s about fitting the ad into the site experience.