Commentary

Putting Lipstick On The Banner

by Joe Marchese , December 14, 2010

It was easily the quote of the day -- or maybe the month. SVnetwork's Chris Rooke must have been reading one of countless articles on the latest and greatest new targeting/DSP/social ad networks hoping for something new, when he just exclaimed to the office "They are just putting lipstick on a banner!" I am not even sure which article he was reading at the time, but besides making me laugh, those words got me thinking about how the digital advertising industry seems to be avoiding problems rather than solving them.

Your banners aren't working? Let's add another layer of data for targeting! It seems that the more sophisticated the targeting systems get, and the more efficient the buying platforms look, the easier it is to forget that it wasn't the targeting that was broken, it was the vehicle. But the fact is, new targeting methods can help justify media buys that don't see direct interaction, because how else can we measure?

Your banners aren't working? Try buying more! Because when targeting isn't enough, volume and retargeting comes next. As CPMs are pushed downward for banners (again, because they are not effective for advertisers), publishers and banner networks look to differentiate based on something to justify a price above the abysmal average. The issue is that no matter how much lipstick you put on a banner, it's still a banner at the end of the day. And study after study shows that banners are ineffective at demand creation because they don't capture consumers' attention. So does more targeting mean that the right consumers are now ignoring your ad?

The issue is that brands are looking for demand creation, which requires consumer attention to a message. Most of these messages are difficult to deliver in a static or flash image alongside content. Advertisers need publishers to find ways to deliver consumers' attention. Targeting works great on demand capture (further down the funnel). A better algorithm leads to better results when you are looking to capture existing demand (finding those consumers who already want a product), but demand creation, the bulk of brand advertising budgets, is a very different story.

banners, commentary, targeting

4 comments about "Putting Lipstick On The Banner".

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Rich Benci from Benci Consulting, LLC, December 14, 2010 at 7:24 p.m.
The lipstick quote made me laugh too! I fully agree we, as marketers, tend to think the targeting technology will fix the problem. I believe the answer to the "demand creation" and "capturing existing demand" lies in contextual relationships -- where premium content on a specific topic guides the user to take action (demand creation). Good long-term example is About.com, where they still live by banner and text ads because they work for their clients in that environment!
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Mike Kelly from LIN Media, December 20, 2010 at 11:50 a.m.

Anyone considered going back to the basic tenets of advertising that dictate a message must give a reason to respond or act? Interested the column mentions putting lipstick on the pig...is that like telling your client, Constant Contact or others that advertised on the page where the op ed piece was published that they are idiots? Even funnier to me was Joe's own display ad telling us to meet him at the Social Media Insider's Summit (and by the way...register today and save!)
It's about the right message at the right time and place. Display has a long future. Targeting and the plethora of ways we have to deliver a message can contribute to its success....but the message itself has to have value and can in fact create both awareness and action. There are planty of studies showing how banners can be effective...and even more effective when combined with search.

Joanna O'Connell, February 16, 2011 at 1:24 p.m.

Joe, one of the biggest problems that Display faces is that we as an industry are terrible at understanding - and effectively measuring - the influence of digital channels on one another. Display can be very effective, for instance, in contributing to search's effectiveness (user sees Display, converts through Search). I recognize that this may seem like "capturing demand" rather than creating it, and in some cases it may well be. But I'm not sure that's the whole story, is it? As long as our approach to cross media measurement remains in the dark ages, Display remains at serious risk of being under valued, or worse, written off altogether. This is a topic I am passionate about, and in fact write about for Forrester, as I believe that interactive marketers need 1) to commit to measuring more effectively and 2) are looking for help on how to do it.

Domenico Tassone, February 19, 2011 at 6:56 p.m.

Really thought-provoking article about display media!

It inspired this blog post last week about display measurement, page tags, retargeting and more entitled, "The Moratorium: No, you May Not Place a Tag on the Site..." http://goo.gl/iuOw0

Enjoy,

Domenico Tassone