A new digital advertising platform, the Digital 30 (D30), is being trialled this summer in the USA. The platform allows advertisers to redistribute their existing 15 or 30 second TV ads across some of the country's premier websites.
So how does it work? A user conducts a search via a search engine, clicks on their chosen result and navigates to the content site. During the transition, the D30 platform serves up a video ad. The ads are loaded and run between web pages, rather than embedded as banner ads are now.
The D30 promises higher rates of viewing than current digital ads, which can be skipped or blocked, as users are required to watch a minimum of 10 seconds before they can close it and move on. This sounds like it will keep the advertisers happy, but probably isn't so in tune with what users are after.
As the shift towards online continues, advertisers seem stumped about the best way to use the medium. Current banner ads have notoriously low click through rates, so there continues to be a push for new ways to market brands online.
Sarah Baehr, Razorfish's national media discipline leader, hoped that if adopted widely by publishers, the D30 would also inspire a creative revolution. “I hope that clients invest in creative. You don’t want bigger, [lousier] creative.” (see Mediaweek article here)
Surely that's the only way it will have any chance of succeeding.
In a world where audiences are increasingly are turning to banner blocking software, I wonder how long it will take someone to figure out how to filter out this latest noisy addition. Perhaps it's time to stop trying to reinvent an old model and move on to something new.