Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Big Sites, Big Ads, Big Mistake

A recent post on TechCrunch and Mediapost announced that 37 top online publishers including ESPN, Forbes, CNN, and NY Times are going to begin running new, BIGGER ad units on their sites. Bigger doesn't mean better, it just means more of an annoyance for more people.

The three new ad units are named and sized as follows:

- The Fixed Panel (336×700) - remains in view as a user scrolls up or down the page
- The XXL Box (468×648), the extra wide side-of-page ad that expands to 936 x 648 and includes page-turn and video capability

- The Pushdown (970×418), which opens big to display the ad and then after seven seconds rolls up to the top of the page (collapsing to 970 x 66).

I agree completely with Robin Wauters, who wrote on her TechCrunch post "Is it just me or does anyone else think that display advertising units on websites should become more relevant to them instead of just bigger? What are next, 1200×600 ads?" Research upon research is showing that it’s the contextual relevance, and not the size that matters.

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