Larger banner ads debut on NYT, WSJ & other top sites
By Jason Menayan March 10th, 2009
Three new banner formats sanctioned by the Online Publishers Association (OPA) have gotten the green light to debut on CNN.com, NYTimes.com, WSJ.com, ESPN.com and other OPA-member sites with a combined audience of over 108 million monthly visitors and 66% of the US Internet audience.
The specs:
- Fixed Panel: 336 x 860; follows the visitor down the page
- XXL Box: 468 x 640; expandable for video and with page-turning capability
- Pushdown: 970 x 418; unfurls to take over most of the visible page but then rolls up
While not IAB standards, the move has been welcomed by the IAB, which has been pressing for ad format innovation as a way to lift the display ad market out of its current slump.
No word on when exactly the ads will be rolled out; I haven’t seen them in the wild yet on any of the sites that are supposed to launch them. It will be interesting to see if they’re well-received by site visitors. If they are successful, expect to see new sizes and formats to proliferate with the blessing of the industry bodies.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Online Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 10th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
What I think is interesting is that for publishers that have traction with brand advertisers, they have had a problem in the past of differentiating their premium inventory from their remnant. Here they have created a differentiated product from their remnant by simply creating a larger ad. On top of that, they have reduced supply which will help increase rates for these premium spots.
I’ve seen them on ESPN.com.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
You’re right – ads meeting these specs are effectively restricted to OPA member sites (i.e. large, high-quality sites with their own internal ad sales forces). But eventually, it’s easy to imagine ad sizes that there’s plenty of inventory for drifting over to intermediates. Then, the onus will be to innovate again.
August 22nd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
[...] pažnju. Ovo istraživanje je vršeno u prethodne 3 godine, pa u njega nisu uključeni neki od novih formata banera, pa ga zato treba uzeti sa rezervom. Jos neke interpretacije rezultata ove studije, zajedno sa [...]