Babylonian conditions in the production of online advertising media
Traditional advertisers are already complaining when a special format has to be produced for an advertisement in Reader's Digest magazine. What should an online agency say when it has to produce a total of 140 different advertising media for a campaign with 250 placements?
The client requested a media plan for its online campaign that took into account Xbox Live, online TV, mobile devices, etc. in addition to the major platforms. For the campaign with two subjects in three languages, we received a production plan for 140 advertising media from the media agency, of which only 40 complied with the IAB standards. The remaining 100 advertising materials were subject to individual specifications, some of which had to be searched for on the publishers' websites or were not easily accessible. As publishers cannot agree on standards for special formats such as Xbox Live, YouTube mastheads, in-read & keyword videos and siteboard videos, they result in additional work and costs:
- The specifications for special formats are only partially available in writing. They must be requested directly from the publishers.
- Mobile advertising in particular leads to advertising media inflation, as the advertising media vary depending on the screen resolution, screen orientation and bandwidth.
- The individual advertising media cannot be derived from a standard dimension; instead, each advertising medium must be laid out individually.
- The publishers have not yet agreed on file formats (FLV, MOV, SWF, etc.), which in turn increases the production effort The client must take into account that a text or image change during production leads to manual adjustments to all advertising media.
- Each advertising medium is analyzed and approved individually. It can happen that a single video format is not accepted by a publisher because it is too loud.
- If the client wants to measure the performance of the campaign with a 3rd party tool, each placement must be provided with a tracking code that must be correctly inserted and tested. In order to further establish online advertising on different mobile devices, publishers are called upon to think not only about their own technology, but also about the requirements of advertisers. Creative media plans and cost-efficient implementations are only possible with a further expansion of standards.
Sandra Marques
