There's been lots of talk in the online ad community recently about surround sessions,
New York Times Digital's new form of advertising. The talk has turned to
action, as the Times rolled out the first campaign last week.
AstraZeneca's Nexium, the successor to Prilosec, the first advertiser, launched a campaign that will last three months, according
to Jared Belsky, a client strategist at Avenue A, the agency that made the buy.
Surround sessions have received a lot of talk because they have the potential to transform online advertising.
"There's a paradigm shift in the way online will be looked at from here on out," says Craig Calder, the proud creator of surround sessions and the VP of marketing at New York Times Digital.
Surround sessions are a series of ads played once a user enters NYTimes.com, with the Times guaranteeing at least five. As users move around the site, the sponsor's ads appear on each page,
exclusively. The ads can appear in a variety of formats, from banners to skyscrapers to rich media.
What's important about this isn't so much the number of ads or the exclusivity, but the way
the audience is measured. The advertising isn't impression-based, like other forms of online advertising, but audience-based, with the advertising guaranteeing a particular audience instead of clicks
to individual ads. By guaranteeing an audience, the advertising becomes more like TV, which uses Gross Ratings Points that measure reach and frequency.
"Media buyers are excited that we've
finally cracked the nut in terms of breaking out of the online centric measurement world," Calder says. "In the past, everyone else measured reach and we measured impressions, but now we can compare
what the media experience is."
This may enable online advertising to compete more favorably with TV and other media. "Now you can compare a 30 second spot to a banner," Calder says. "Now you
can compare a 30 second spot to a five minute exclusive experience," which is what surround sessions are. "The idea now is that we can work an online campaign into a traditional budget with similar
metrics. It will help the industry move forward and get those dollars," he says.
That's a tall order, but the online buying community seems to be behind it. Attention was paid to the format
last week at the @d:Tech show, where media buyers at one session praised it as the next big thing.
Belsky says AstraZeneca is using it as part of a huge launch campaign that also includes
advertising on all major health sites, Superstitials and other rich media units, as well as co-registrations and sponsorships. He praises surround sessions in part for their ability to offer an
extended message, which is ideal for a launch campaign. "With any drug launch, much information needs to be conveyed and this provides the needed real estate," he says.
Indeed, new creative
was tailored for the surround sessions, he says, which is something Calder hoped would happen.
Discussing the measurement issue, Belsky says, "When you buy banners and skyscrapers you pay for
impressions separately, but with this you pay for the session. It's not impression based, it's user based."
He says the new advertising has "far reaching implications for the industry as a
whole."
As for its ability to compare online with other media, that will also happen with a branding study that's being done during the surround sessions. Pop up surveys running during the
sessions will measure their branding effectiveness, which will give Avenue A a better idea of how they are working.
Jim Nail, a Forrester Research analyst, says, "Up to this point, online
advertising's focus on impression count has meant that a one million impression buy might end up delivering 500,000 individuals, each of whom saw the ad twice, or 100,000 individuals who saw the ad 10
times. This lack of control of frequency has deterred advertisers." It remains to be seen if the surround sessions will alleviate the problem.