Size Matters Study Results For Online Display Advertising

According to a new international study from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), brands are again benefiting from bigger online display formats.

The Size Matters study was carried out in the UK, the US, Europe, Australia and South America over a period of nearly two years and collected data from 770 campaigns. Results proved that billboards outperform other online advertising formats included in the study, more specifically newer means of display like wallpaper and half page, as well as more traditional ones, like skyscraper, MPU and banner.

The various formats were analysed according to five major criteria: aided brand awareness, online ad awareness, message association, brand favourability and purchase intent. Billboard scored three times better in terms of ad awareness and twice better in terms of brand favourability than wallpaper, which ranked second best.

Wallpaper yielded the highest brand awareness from all formats included in the study and proved five times better than the average in terms of message association. However, skyscraper was the champion in the purchase intent metric, with an uplift of 1.4 percentage points.

Tim Elkington, IAB director of research and strategy, comments that the industry can only benefit from the new large display formats, as both brands and consumers seem to be excited by them. The findings from the Size Matters study highlight the advantages of formats like billboard and wallpaper, he adds.