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Ozometer by Play
The campaign was created to celebrate Foster's famous ‘No Worries’ attitude. In creating the campaign, Play searched for some of Britain’s most, and least, ‘No worries’ people, celebrities and places. More on Play's award winning campaign.The role of online display advertising and its history
Written by Sabrina Mayeen, PR Manager UK, DoubleClick
Throughout the 90’s online advertising had a turbulent yet exciting ride as the new player in the media landscape (introducing the term ‘new media’). The launch of the NCSA Mosaic browser in 1993 introduced us to a graphically enhanced internet versus the original text based version.
As the cost of computers fell, more homes and businesses went online and the face of the internet was set to change. Once seen as the domain of geeks, the web became a consumer friendly entity, presenting far more sophisticated information and entertainment options. Interest grew.
This change started a consumer land grab like the gold rush years in pioneering America. Throughout the 90’s the news was full of dotcom millionaires, everyone was panning for gold… even grandmothers were looking for ideas to fund retirement. Investment flowed freely if you had a whiff of a good idea, the fact that many of these ideas had unsustainable business models was largely overlooked.
Online content publishers realised that they needed a sustainable commercial framework. Some companies opted for subscription based models, though for the majority, display based advertising was the best way to monetise their site without choking the flow of users.
Display advertising wasn’t a new idea, however translating this to an online audience needed some serious consideration. As far back as the mid-80’s, Prodigy (the IBM and Sears-run dial-up online service) was running graphical placements, the forerunner
to what we now know as online display adverts.
October 25th 1994 saw the birth of online display as we would recognise it today with the first ever online banner being hosted on Hotwired. AT&T’s “You will” campaign was heralded as the first web ad to run.
In 1996 the “interactive” ad was born. HP’s Shockwave “Pong” banner was the first rich media ad as you could play Pong in the banner.
With ever increasing consumer interest growing in the internet, online display advertising was gaining momentum. In an attempt to create more revenue, websites increased the number of ads across their site and in some cases it wasn’t uncommon to see forty different advertisers on a single page.
Advertisers were accustomed to solus (single) ad slots and did not like being part of a mosaic of adverts. Consumers also looked dimly on a page with more ads than content. This led to websites scaling back the number of advertising placements on their pages, while keeping the ability to place multiple adverts for different advertisers on their site.
This is where the now familiar creative rotation was born and with it the ad server (a company that hosts the ad files, delivering them to multiple websites). To bring standardisation to online display ad formats, the IAB released the first real ad standards in 2003, which has been updated regularly and is still widely used today.
The IAB’s standards led to wider understanding about display and made the creative, booking and placement process far easier. As a model for the introduction of new advertising formats the standards prove that to enable growth, industry wide cooperation and standardisation is essential.
[back to top]
Online display advertising today is far more sophisticated and offers far more choice than during the early years. The dotcom crash of the early noughties is largely a distant memory and online advertising is proving itself to be one of the most effective forms of advertising.
It is a marketing medium in its own right, not just supporting an offline strategy but in some cases leading it. Today when an advertiser plans marketing spend, it is almost inconceivable to omit online display activity from a media schedule. However encouraging this may sound, some advertisers still need convincing. Online represents 25% of an individual’s media consumption in the UK yet only 12-15% of budgets are being allocated to the medium.
There continues to be an explosion of formats to captivate the consumer. Expandables, transitionals, superstitials, drop downs, page peels, reminders… a new format is born almost every day to keep ahead of the competition and to interact with, inform and entertain online users. And video is just heating up.
Online display advertising has seen a dramatic evolution, mainly due to consumer demand and ease of access. Media planners need to think about how their audiences use the internet to effectively engage with them and ensure the best ROI for their advertisers.
For many of the social aspects of the internet, widgets have already started to play a large role in capturing online consumers and video continues to break ground and create new advertising opportunities.
Optimisation of campaigns will grow in importance and, it is unlikely that there will be many online display campaigns not utilising this technology in the future. The future of online will hold more choice for advertisers than ever.
[back to top]
Throughout the 90’s online advertising had a turbulent yet exciting ride as the new player in the media landscape (introducing the term ‘new media’). The launch of the NCSA Mosaic browser in 1993 introduced us to a graphically enhanced internet versus the original text based version.
As the cost of computers fell, more homes and businesses went online and the face of the internet was set to change. Once seen as the domain of geeks, the web became a consumer friendly entity, presenting far more sophisticated information and entertainment options. Interest grew.
Bonanza
This change started a consumer land grab like the gold rush years in pioneering America. Throughout the 90’s the news was full of dotcom millionaires, everyone was panning for gold… even grandmothers were looking for ideas to fund retirement. Investment flowed freely if you had a whiff of a good idea, the fact that many of these ideas had unsustainable business models was largely overlooked.
Online display advertising goes mainstream
Online content publishers realised that they needed a sustainable commercial framework. Some companies opted for subscription based models, though for the majority, display based advertising was the best way to monetise their site without choking the flow of users.
to what we now know as online display adverts.
October 25th 1994 saw the birth of online display as we would recognise it today with the first ever online banner being hosted on Hotwired. AT&T’s “You will” campaign was heralded as the first web ad to run.
In 1996 the “interactive” ad was born. HP’s Shockwave “Pong” banner was the first rich media ad as you could play Pong in the banner.
With ever increasing consumer interest growing in the internet, online display advertising was gaining momentum. In an attempt to create more revenue, websites increased the number of ads across their site and in some cases it wasn’t uncommon to see forty different advertisers on a single page.
Advertisers were accustomed to solus (single) ad slots and did not like being part of a mosaic of adverts. Consumers also looked dimly on a page with more ads than content. This led to websites scaling back the number of advertising placements on their pages, while keeping the ability to place multiple adverts for different advertisers on their site.
This is where the now familiar creative rotation was born and with it the ad server (a company that hosts the ad files, delivering them to multiple websites). To bring standardisation to online display ad formats, the IAB released the first real ad standards in 2003, which has been updated regularly and is still widely used today.
The IAB’s standards led to wider understanding about display and made the creative, booking and placement process far easier. As a model for the introduction of new advertising formats the standards prove that to enable growth, industry wide cooperation and standardisation is essential.
[back to top]
The end of the beginning
Online display advertising today is far more sophisticated and offers far more choice than during the early years. The dotcom crash of the early noughties is largely a distant memory and online advertising is proving itself to be one of the most effective forms of advertising.
It is a marketing medium in its own right, not just supporting an offline strategy but in some cases leading it. Today when an advertiser plans marketing spend, it is almost inconceivable to omit online display activity from a media schedule. However encouraging this may sound, some advertisers still need convincing. Online represents 25% of an individual’s media consumption in the UK yet only 12-15% of budgets are being allocated to the medium.
More choice
There continues to be an explosion of formats to captivate the consumer. Expandables, transitionals, superstitials, drop downs, page peels, reminders… a new format is born almost every day to keep ahead of the competition and to interact with, inform and entertain online users. And video is just heating up.
Now and beyond
Online display advertising has seen a dramatic evolution, mainly due to consumer demand and ease of access. Media planners need to think about how their audiences use the internet to effectively engage with them and ensure the best ROI for their advertisers.
For many of the social aspects of the internet, widgets have already started to play a large role in capturing online consumers and video continues to break ground and create new advertising opportunities.
Optimisation of campaigns will grow in importance and, it is unlikely that there will be many online display campaigns not utilising this technology in the future. The future of online will hold more choice for advertisers than ever.
[back to top]
