communication is essential to business making and it involves more than the ability to name your product, write a tag line or a press release. It's an intricate, rational and scalable effort and, let's face it, not anyone can do it.

4/17/2010

Romania's publishers decide to set display standards

I am not entirely sure what this means, but some of the top publishing conglomerates online in Romania have put out a three points standard system for display on their websites. This means that they will start "evaluating" the display they accept on their websites. It will serve to increase the quality of display they get, and thus, enhance results for clients and agencies alike.

From what I understand the consesnus is that publishers will refuse CPC payment when the campaign is clearly brand awareness or brand building driven. CPT payment will be enforced in this case. I also understand that the publishers will evaluate display submitted and decide whether it qualifies for CPC, CPA, CPL or CPT. Plus, ads will get run of network or run of category treatment exclusively in order to ensure targeting more clearly and better results for the client.

Well, to me, it seems like a great initiative for an industry which has managed to bury display almost completely through the very work of some of its agency heads who, avowedly, despise display and consider it a menial form or promotion BUT... :D some questions do remain:

- it's pretty hard to evaluate display creative anyway, banners are small, they move fast etc. Who will be the ultimate decision maker in what gets CPC or CPT treatment? Can we get some basic guidelines, you guys :D (like simple one liners "always say click here, never use flashing arrows or always use flashing arrows)

- does this mean that publishers will become involved in telling agencies what works or not? will this be done transparently? or, like agencies sometimes get with ad serving companies, where the creative is simply rejected without explanations.
If this is not the case, I expect to see an incremental ballooning in revenue for in-house publisher agencies - which caught some wings last year but eventually almost died out.

- if run of category is mandatory what prevents publishers from spawning a host of "category-friendly" mini websites which then will attract top dollar without the actual traffic numbers solely on the basis of affinity?

I think this idea by the publishers gives agencies a great opportunity to go to the clients and make some points about the use and misuse of display. I also think that we will finally see campaigns that will HAVE to be made with at least some guidelines covered (like, for Pete's sake, have a landing page that requires some form of response and then track it!) and that maybe we will stop trying to bury what has so far been the largest source of revenue for publishers. In the meantime however it would be nice if I could get some answers to the above.

Anyone?

3 comments:

Costin Radu said...

Bogdana,

It's a huge debate here. For now, I totally agree with the publishers.

It's not correct to pay CPC and to run display ads which are not aiming to get clickthrough rates. As this has happened a lot lately I think it has to stop.

So, although it may not be the best long term decision for the publishers, I think it's good because it gets the debate started. Paying some attention to the types of display advertising and making agencies think a bit about when to use banners may improve effectiveness.

mioara said...

I think this idea by the publishers gives agencies a great opportunity to go to the clients and make some points about the use and misuse of display.

Masaj erotic Targu Mures said...

I totally agree with the publishers.