King Kong formats are here to stay

27 large publishers, including NYT, Forbes, and ESPN have announced that they’re replacing the traditional IAB ad formats by bigger, shinier ones.

This doesn’t seem to be an IAB initiative in the least, rather more of an OPA thing. Considering that this comes right after Vivaki spearheaded the video formats makeover as recently as this past January, this is worrysome. IAB has its place but needs to be agile enough to allow for innovation.

The fact that, collectively, these 27 publishers represent over 100mm uniques is important because top agencies will be more likely to develop creative only in these new formats. Which will let other publishers feel left out unless they also own up to the new king kong formats. In other words, there is a very strong possibility that many more publishers will have to update their layouts if they want a piece of big advertisers’ campaigns.

Given the recession and advertisers’ tightening their purses, we’re seeing two massive trends in display advertising, both working concurrently to justify premiums publishers have gotten used to over the past years. The first one, as it’s getting clear now, is king kong formats. The second is data portability, with companies like Bluekai and Lookery specializing in data collection and allowing ad networks and publishers to target and report on a much deeper level. But no matter how clever you are with your targeting, if ads are ignored or barely visible, it’s a waste.

That is why the rapidity of adoption of new formats will likely be very similar to Bluekai’s growth curve.

Edit: reactions from Thane Calder on cloudraker’s blog and Yannick Manuri on espresso