Finding ways around the standard mobile banner ad

By Joe McCarthy

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March 28, 2014

Alex Linde, senior vice president of monetization at The Weather Company

SAN FRANCISCO – Conveying the essence of a campaign through a mobile banner advertisement can be stifling, but many brands are finding inventive ways to get around this stumbling block, according to a session March 26 at ad:tech San Francisco 2014.

The “Beyond the Banner: Making Money with Mobile” session discussed the steps that marketers should take when looking to monetize an ad and explored alternatives to traditional assumptions. Using The Weather Channel’s groundbreaking ad solutions as a backdrop, the session called for a more calculated approach than one-size fits all.

“It’s not about about a particular feature or screen, it’s where are we going here, what is the objective of the brand?” said Alex Linde, senior vice president of monetization at The Weather Company, San Francisco.

“I think sometimes we tend to overuse the platforms because they’re there,” he said.

Organized tacticTo successfully monetize a mobile ad, a brand should first set out multiple guidelines.

Mr. Linde said that marketers must clarify what exactly the format of an ad is going to be rather than indiscriminately selecting the standard assortment. Sometimes ads should only appear on certain platforms.

When an ad appears too often on multiple platforms, it eventually does damage to a brand by annoying consumers.

Beyond the Banner: Making Money with Mobile session

Next, marketers should figure out how they can optimize an ad to reach the right audience. Mr Linde then broached The Weather Company’s latest mobile ad capacities.

The banner ad just was not cutting it for advertisers, so the company created branded backgrounds. If the weather is sunny, a fashion brand can create a beach scene background showcasing sunglasses. If the day is snowy, an automotive brand can show off a car’s four-wheel drive.

Since The Weather Company has highly localized data information, ad placements can be customized on a day to day basis.

Also, brands can deploy a more basic ad that pops up and offers branded suggestions based on the weather.

Next phaseAfter proper targeting, brands should ask questions that can be addressed with incremental measurements.

“It’s amazing how often you see measurement thrown on without the right questions,” Mr. Linde said.

Similarly, marketers should get a better understanding of the nuances of programmatic advertising.

“Programmatic is liberating,” Mr. Linde said. “From a tech point of view it’s sort of a solved problem. And programmatic is liberating as a publisher because it lets me benchmark my inventory.”

Finally, the results of an ad should be attributed to find out precisely what worked and what did not work.

While The Weather Company’s background ads present a novel solution for capturing a campaign, brands still rely on banner ads in many places.

For instance, French atelier Saint Laurent Paris targeted fashionable readers of New York magazine’s The Cut to promote its Sac de Jour handbag collection.

A product-driven advertisement strategy may generate click-throughs, but without enticing imagery the reader may continue on to the mobile site’s content. In Saint Laurent’s case, the brand relied heavily on its notoriety by choosing to display only its logo at the top of The Cut’s page and a smaller box ad embedded within the content where an image was included (see story).

As other outlets devise more seamless means of connecting with consumers and conveying brand message, mobile will begin to rival other channels.

“We as an industry haven’t done enough to solve for unique capabilities of this device,” Mr. Linde said.

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