Quirk is optimistic about the future of display advertising and it seems that we are not the only ones. For a long time the more cynical digital marketers have been announcing to the world “display advertising is dead” or even more pronounced “only the foolish among us use banners these days."
But the proof is in the pudding: online publishers are growing the display advertising pie and Google is offering them the tools to do so. Apart from the obvious punting of their products, Google has definitely realised what the potential of display advertising is. “Display advertising is about much more than ads in Web browsers. People are watching videos, reading newspapers, magazines, books and listening to music online at an ever-increasing rate. They’re turning to a plethora of new devices - smartphones, tablets, e-readers and even video game consoles.”
There are a number of things that make display advertising such an interesting beast. Many feel that advertisers (not the Web) are killing newspapers. A report on Business Insider claims that advertisers have fled newspapers for the greener, cheaper pastures of the Internet and they're not coming back. An advertiser has a greater ability to target ad spend to reach relevant audiences and reach their objectives. Display advertising certainly has these capabilities and more.
What does this mean for the future of traditional media? Unlike the doom prophets’ predictions about the end of traditional media, traditional media will stick around for a long time. A lot of people still consume traditional media as they always have and only included digital in the mix to get better, quicker updates. Many publishers are also now offering fully integrated packages where digital and traditional support each other.
In addition, online ad growth is surpassing total ad growth. In this piece by Borrel Associates, they expect display advertising to grow by 60% in 2011 in the US. The emerging technologies to support display advertising will certainly aid this growth to a large extent.
Granted, this is US-based research but South Africa will soon follow suit. We are increasingly seeing better display ads and better display advertising media plans locally, hopefully moving confidence back to the power of display advertising. Compound all these factor and we will definitely see an accelerated increase in spend towards display advertising.
eMarketers should therefore take heed: display is far from dead. Despite the damage done by poorly thought out and executed plans (and horrible ads), the industry is leaning towards bigger and better things.
Display advertising is also a visually rich and creatively awarding experience. Display ads, as we know, do not have to be rich media and expensive to be effective – clever ads can work well too:
And what is the future of display? With increased optimism, more creative opportunities, better technology and clever thinking, display has a bright future indeed.
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Go 'dré - you tell them girl!
A key point to the push to digtal in terms of ad spend is the fact that media consumption has changed dramatically with the advent of the internet.
Global Newspaper spend last year accounted for 30% of global ad spend but accounted for ony 5% of time spent on media whereas spen on digital was only 5% but time spent on the medium was 40%!
This picture will correct itself FAST!
The beauty of premum display esepcially where interactive page takeovers are allowed, such as they are on the howzitMSN portal, is that not only can you have great brand exposure but you can immerse the user in the brand and they can engage like never before.
Posted by Klaus on 2010/10/14