Hearst has announced plans to move forward with AOL's Project Devil ad format - that is, its interactive ads that are four times the size of regular online ads, created by its display unit Pictela. The publisher will be running the ads in such sites as Cosmopolitan.com, MarieClaire.com, and Esquire.com, according to the Wall Street Journal.
It is following in the footsteps of other brands that have tried out the concept, including Verizon Wireless and Procter & Gamble Co.'s Duracell batteries. They displayed on StyleList, Moviefone and AOL Travel. The price of the unit is $50 per thousand views, the Journal says, citing buyers' reports.
A Good Case
AOL has made a good case for the unit, which offers such interactive elements as games, polls, videos and coupons: it shows figures that consumers are spending an average 47 additional seconds with the new ads. They also play an average 24 seconds more of the video. There are other factors advertisers no doubt are considering as they mull over the decision of trying out this new product, as well as the growing number of other formats. Namely, display appears to be finally finding its stride, based on earnings reports from Yahoo (display was its bright spot) and Google, not to mention the newest figures from comScore.
In its newly-released overview of the U.S. online display advertising market for Q1 2011, it reports that nearly 1.11 trillion display ads were delivered to U.S. internet users during the quarter. "We are now seeing more than one trillion display ads delivered every single quarter and nearly 300 individual advertisers spending at least $1 million a quarter on display, numbers which underscore just how large and vibrant the online medium has become," said Jeff Hackett, comScore executive vice president.
AOL is Trailing
But is AOL in the lead in this category? Most assuredly note. Not surprisingly that honor went to Facebook, which accounted for 346 billion impressions, nearly double the number it delivered in Q1 2010, and nearly one third of all display ad impressions delivered. That is a 31.2% market share, an astounding increase of 15 percentage points from 16.2% in Q1 2010. Yahoo! Sites ranked second during the most recent quarter with 112 billion impressions (10.1%), followed by Microsoft Sites with 54 billion impressions (4.8%) and AOL, Inc. with 33 billion impressions (3%).
Shades of iAd?
Indeed one reason why some advertisers have held off from Project Devil is because they would be locked into only using them on AOL. "They like the concept, but want to be able to have one "Devil"-like unit that can be deployed across a variety of sites," Ben Schachter, an analyst with Macquarie Securities, told the Journal.
A related issue came up with Apple’s iAd as well, at least in its early days, and was one reason why at least some firms held off. Specifically, the lack of a standard metric for mobile advertising kept the buys in the modest and experimental category. No one was - or is - able to agree on appropriate and standardized metrics.
Earlier this year a report in TechCrunch found that fill rates for iAds began dropping dramatically after the New Year, from 18% to 6%, in the case of two developers. There could be any number of reasons, Tech Crunch speculated, from a seasonal dip to a change in Apple’s sales model (that is, Steve Jobs is no longer personally pushing the model to prospects) to confusing pricing - to the fact that they only run on the iOS platform. No, the iAd is not a direct apples-to-apples comparison to Project Devil, but the similarities are close enough to make advertisers pause.
