That old Chinese proverb, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” is more relevant today than ever, and nowhere illustrates its validity better than the Internet.
While the Internet started out life as purely text based, it has quickly evolved along strongly visual lines, particularly with the rise of mobile. The three fastest-growing social platforms – Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr – are all image based, and every day, two billion images are shared across the Internet via countless smart phones, connected cameras, computers, and more.
This next phase in the Internet’s development – increasingly dubbed the visual web– represents as many challenges as it does opportunities for digital marketers. The huge volume of content makes cutting through to connect with a consumer increasingly difficult. Then there’s the worrying possibility that content saturation is driving users towards increasing intolerance of ads. Anyone following the ad blocking debate should understand this.
But the really progressive brands are also recognising the opportunity this trend presents to marry the image-centric nature of today’s Internet with relevant and captivating ad experiences. A good example of this is in-image advertising. The in-image ad uses data about the image, its tags, and the surrounding content to serve a small, aesthetically pleasing and relevant ad within the image itself.
From the advertisers’ perspective, bringing ads into images ensures that users actually see ads. Images, after all, are the most captivating part of the site. Eye tracking studies have shown that people online focus more energy and attention on images than anything else. And because the ads are by design in line with the surrounding content, they don’t appear as intrusive or out of context.
In-image ads also represent a big opportunity for publishers. In order to maintain the costs of delivering their content for free, as well as to compete with the social and search giants, many publishers have had to design their sites and package their content in a way that makes it more likely that users will see the ads on them, but this approach has had a negative impact on the customer experience.
Video is a good example. From video ads that begin automatically to standard pre-rolls, many current video ad formats are sometimes seen as intrusive to the content experience. In addition, today’s savvy digital consumer tends to ignore ads, since they often run along the side rails of a site, or below the fold. One study found 94 per cent of people had skipped pre-roll ads and 52 per cent said they did so frequently.
The benefit of in-image advertising is that it doesn’t disrupt the content; it complements it. These ads allow publishers to provide seamless and native experiences that treat readers with respect, demonstrating that brands are trying to add value to the content experience, not take away from it.
Even so, in-image ads are clearly ads; unlike some native advertising, they aren’t trying to trick users into thinking they are purely editorial content, which can be frustrating. And in-image ads relieve the publisher from having to run popups and other imposing ad formats that encroach on content and slow down the performance of sites. The final result is that readers will be able to browse their favourite sites without feeling bombarded by advertising messages.
The advantages of in-image ads are increasingly apparent, but digital marketers are really only scratching the surface in making the most of them. As more brands try this approach, the disruption of traditional forms of advertising such as the static banner ad is inevitable, and it will require a shift in strategy and focus. But this can only be a good thing for an industry desperate for new ways to captivate users and garner long term loyalty.
By John Donovan, UK Vice President at GumGum.
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