Digital Ad Impact

So I've been reading a bit here lately about what is being called a problem for digital advertising - why consumer's can't recall online advertising.

Obviously, I'm in the industry and while I can call some creative that I've liked... I've got plenty more examples from other media. So should digital advertising consider more impactful ad units, i.e. - one ad unit per page?

I like the idea, but something seems odd to me. I grew up in a time when people freaked over how certain songs sounded when you played them backwards. Have we lost the idea that working into someone's subconscious is just as desirable as making them sing our jingle?

Hey don't get me wrong, I totally agree that it's absolutely silly to think that someone who doesn't even scroll down enough to see the ad is anything but a wasted impression. But just because I didn't play the ad's game or clicked the ad, does it mean I wasn't impacted?

Instead, I think the larger problem is two fold

For awareness driven campaigns, it's often difficult for consumers to understand what the ad wants you to takeaway. The pages which are usually targeted for awareness campaigns often aren't pages that people rest on for more than mere seconds. Off the top of my head, two ideas come to mind:

• Create simple, 5-second ads for these types of ads
• Push publishers to retarget users who only saw part of the message until they are given time to digest the message

Completely opposite of that, is trying to tell the consumer a story and trying to get them to perform an action (AKA DR). Over and over again, we find that contextually relevant conversation and content is the best area to get someone to perform an action. Here is where it's easier to get someone to get into your message... because you're relevant to what they want to find.

Display often gets a lot of knocks but when you think of it as a process instead of an instantaneous push, it's much easier to create a successful campaign.