Coming Monday: TheiPadLab—E-readers with something extra
TAKEAWAY: Make room for ads that go beyond the linear in your news iPad app. Let the user experience advertising content in a way that would make it easy to access and to enjoy. Create the “advertising suite” that invites and keeps the user inside the app.
Here is the Virgin Atlantic advdrtising suite as it appears in The Daily: notice navigation bat at bottom, the brand presence, and the click and go that allows for the user to experience the product
Another advertising suite in The Daily, for HP computers
The three main components for creating the advertising suite
Sketch from the advertising suite workshop in Vienna
Madrid’s El Pais introduces sponsorship ad on door screen
Perhaps one of the most important areas to consider when creating and developing a news iPad app is the role that advertising will play, and how it will be designed to maximize its effectiveness.
That was the subject of a workshop with our clients WirtschaftBlatt in Vienna this week.
We conducted this workshop with the WB’s digital team, but accompanied by the creative minds of the agency with which WB works.
I thought that some of the topics covered would be of general interest and , therefore, constitute a good iPadLab segment: all about advertising.
The essentials
It is important to remember three things when incorporating ads into your app:
Sponsorship advertising: in the world of news iPad apps, it is best to seek an advertising sponsor who becomes the exclusive advertiser for a given edition of your app. This is something that facilitates enhancing your relationship with your advertising clients, while ensuring that the ads (the brand) gets unique, exclusive exposure through various screens on the app.
The experience: Create ads that go beyond looking, to incorporate experiencing: what works for editorial content also works for advertising content on the iPad. Just as we do not want totally linear, flat, turn the pages for storytelling, the same applies to ads. The user wants to touch the screen and experience the product, relating to the brand in a different, more interactive way.
The advertising suite: I like to think that advertising inside an app as a “suite” where the user finds a sort of mini website for the product, with specific navigators, direct messages and a visual ambience that allows for good aesthetics and interactivity. If a sponsor is secured for one of your iPad app editions, then the next step is to create the suite where that advertiser can see how his brand and message will look in the app.
In my experience, few advertising agencies today provide ready made concepts that a client can relate to. This, too, will come with time, but right now it is not there yet.
Therefore, it is my experience that we should create and develop the suites, then take them to the advertising client. This is a specific case where “show and tell” go hand in hand.
Create your own advertising suites
Perhaps one of the best lessons we learn from The Daily, the first newspaper specifically designed for the iPad, is how the advertising is displayed and how “advertising suites” allow the user to get into visual and interactive ads that keep the user inside the app——in fact, one of the prerequisites of an advertising suite is that it keeps the user in the app, NOT sending him to the advertiser’s website.
I still think that advertising offers one of the most exciting possibilities for news apps, not just to generate much needed revenue, but also to provide an enjoyable visual experience to the user. It is in this area that we are merely taking real first baby steps as we create news apps. We will see much development in the next few months for advertising in traditional newspaper apps. More exciting presentation is taking place already with magazine apps.
Nobody should wait for the advertising agencies to take the initiative. I believe it is up to the iPad app team in each newspaper to appoint someone to create advertising suites for selected clients, then present the finish product to them (or work in conjunction with the prospective client, as we are planning to do at the WirtschaftBlatt). Chances are we can seduce advertising clients with advertising suites that show the best of what this platform can do to promote their brands.
Of interest
In one of our blog postings this week, we wrote about Type as Expression, and showed various examples of type utilized beyond characters and numbers. Here is a link to a related story with great examples:
What is typographic illustration?
SALON | APRIL 20, 2011
http://pulsene.ws/1mz3v
– USA: News.Me, Social News Service, Debuts for iPad
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/news-me-social-news-service-debuts-for-ipad/
– USA: Chasing pageviews with values: How the Christian Science Monitor has adjusted to a web-first, SEO’d world
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/04/chasing-pageviews-with-values-how-the-christian-science-monitor-has-adjusted-to-a-web-first-seod-world/
– USA: Why our small-town daily is adding a full-time curator
http://newspaperturnaround.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/why-our-small-town-daily-is-adding-a-full-time-curator/
-Vatican newspaper goes online – but readers will soon have to pay
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/20/vatican-newspaper-launches-online-edition
– 50% Of Apple’s Revenue Now Comes From The iPhone
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2011/04/20/apple-now-making-50-of-their-revenue-from-the-iphone/
– Magazine Publishers Scramble To Streamline Their App Production
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-magazine-publishers-scramble-to-streamline-their-app-production/
– The 5 Best iPad Apps For Consuming The News That’s Important To You
http://www.mediabistro.com/10000words/the-five-best-ipad-apps-for-consuming-the-news-thats-important-to-you_b3440
Today’s pop ups
Bild’s app provides schedule of events for the Royal Wedding in London next week
Bild’s app shows a very pregnant Mariah Carey
WoodWing’s Xperience seminar May 24-25
I am honored to be one of three keynote speakers at the upcoming WoodWing Xperience seminar in Amsterdam May 24-25
I did a previous keynote for a WoodWing Tour function in London in 2010.
For those interested in attending, here is more information:
May 24-25, 2011, Amsterdam, Netherlands
http://xperience.woodwing.com