Personal thoughts on the evolution of digital advertising formats in a mobile, data & content driven world.

1. The Future of Digital Ads
Alan King 8th October 2013
alanking.org

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In digital media there are only two trends to worry
about
1. Rush to mobile devices
2. Programmatic ad delivery

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“People want advertising that’s
virtually indistinguishable from
information”
Nikesh Arora: Senior Vice President & Chief Business Officer - Google

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Why ‘broadly’ do people use the web?
1.To find information
2.To perform a task
3.To be entertained

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Perhaps the best digital advertising…
1.Is information
2.Makes the task easier
3.Is entertaining

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Kind of hard to do that with these

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Agencies and brands are worried about their ads not
being seen or clicked on

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Two reasons the industry came up with these….

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But this is a shitty
answer to a desktop
problem

10. alanking.org 10/13Gartner
And the new world is mobile

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So these ads have been developed

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Which are the same
shitty answers as
before

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BANNER ADS ARE NOT THE
FUTURE OF DIGITAL DISPLAY
ADVERTISING
EVEN IF THEY EXPAND

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Banners were first developed for Prodigy; then the World
wide web. They are C. 20 yrs. old

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And CTR’s have been in decline ever since
HotWired CTR 1994
78%
Ave banner CTR 2013
0.05%

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http://andrewchen.co/2012/04/05/the-law-of-shitty-clickthroughs/#
Some research suggests people aren’t looking at
ads even when they are visible

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• It’s harder than ever to get the attention of digital audiences
• We live in a world where people use mobile devices to search for
and access content; as we shift to a world of mobile devices, the
ad experience and units we are used to on desktop will not work
• In many cases we are shoehorning an 18 year old format onto a
platform that didn’t exist 6 years ago
• The answer is to provide the user with meaningful and important
content; native to device and environment and totally based on
relevance
• It has to scale so the technology to hand must deliver the content
programmatically
• Are publishers geared up for this? Does the ad delivery tech exist?
The ad business MUST evolve

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Cards

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But cards aint programmatic…..

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MobileProgrammatic
Content
marketing
Smart
Content
Adding content to the big trends reveals the sweet spot

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Smart Content
1.Is information (blogs, whitepaper, educational video, podcasts)
2.Makes the task easier (branded utilities)
3.Is entertaining (video, lists, pictures, stories)

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"We're not really selling ads,
we're promoting their (Brands’)
content.“
Lee Brown: Head of sales - Tumblr