|
Now
you see it…now you
don’t! |
 |
| Imagine
a nationwide power blackout. |
| On
the very day, the final episode of “Jassi…”
is scheduled for telecast on Sony TV (where meticulously
planted society buzz has it that she morphs into
Mrs. Shrek!!!). |
| And
YOU have just spent lakhs on special 30 sec
spots for this episode. |
| Pity…
no one can see Jassi turn green. |
| EVEN
WORSE… NO ONE CAN
SEE YOUR ADS when Jassi turns
green!!! |
| The
above scenario is an analogy for what happens
EVERY DAY all over the internet, when online
media planners buy special 120x600 size ad units
(called “Sky” in net lingo) in premium
portals, without knowing that NO ONE with a
standard desktop resolution of 800x600 can see
them. The ad will be visible ONLY to consumers
with a 1024x768 pixel screen resolution. |
| It’s
horrifying when you buy 120x600 spots and create
a smart ad for that size, only to realize later
that in 800x600 resolution, the bottom part
of the ad is cut off in the first scroll. Quite
irritating for the viewer and quite frustrating
for the agency, who will now feel that they
should have created a 120x240 sized ad instead. |
|
Wouldn’t
it be swell to show a specific ad size for one
type of screen resolution and a different ad
size for another? |
|
In
case you are wondering what’s the big
deal between different screen resolutions, look
at the box below and try to note the difference: |
|
|
| Eureka!!! |
|
To make that kind of targeting possible, the hardworking
R&D team at Mediaturf (India's leading
online ad agency) has been digging for solutions
and made a breakthrough in 2004, when they came
up with an ad serving code with the help of Double-click
(the world’s leading ad serving software
developer) that allows us to serve (through the
ad server) different creatives for different screen
resolutions. (Thankfully, they didn’t streak
across the streets of Mumbai.) |
|
It was still not possible to generate differentiated
screen resolution wise impression reports (which
are invaluable for planning). Then again, in 2005,
a second breakthrough by the R&D team at Mediaturf,
when they cracked the code to not just SERVE but
also generate IMPRESSION and CLICK reports to
differentiate between 1024x768 screens and 800x600
screens. The R&D team in Mediaturf has since
successfully tested this technology on the Windows
95, 98, 2000 and XP operating systems. It has
also been rigorously tested on IE 4 and above,
Netscape 6 and above, in addition to Mozilla’s
Firefox, making it now officially possible to
incorporate the screen resolution data to online
media planning.
|
| But
how does the damn thing ACTUALLY work?
|
| GEEK
ALERT! (The rest of you guys can log off now.)
|
|
1. |
A
specially designed code which will help
the Double-click Ad Server detect the screen
resolution of the user’s computer
monitor is pasted on the website. |
|
2. |
Every
time a user visits that page, the above ‘ad
tag’ gets activated and passes a request
to the backend ad-server for an ad. |
|
3. |
The
intelligent ad serving system automatically
understands that the request for an ad is
coming for: |
| |
| |
i. |
A
specific Ad Size |
| |
ii. |
From
a specific Section (News, Sports, Business
etc) of the Site |
| |
iii. |
And
from a precise Position of the ad
unit (top frame, bottom frame, right
frame, left frame etc). |
| |
iv. |
And
NOW, also the pixel Resolution (1024x728
or 800x600) of the user’s computer
screen. |
|
|
4. |
The
Ad Server then passes this information to
it’s database which in turn validates
the screen resolution and also checks which
ad is configured for that resolution and
informs the creative server to pass that
image to the ad tag. |
|
5. |
Finally,
the desired image gets served. |
|
|
The
interesting thing to note is that this whole optimized
serving process takes only a fraction of a second
and does not cause any delay or time lag in displaying
the ad. Which means, we can now add Screen
resolution to existing segmentation variables
like Geo-Country, Geo-City, Day of Week, Time
& Browser, helping ad targeting more efficient. |
|
Now
advertisers can sit back and relax, knowing for
certain that potential customers are seeing their
ads without having to waste effort (and hence,
losing interest) in scrolling their browser up
and down! |
|
|
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