Cartier Exhibition in Paris Deploys 300 x 600 Online Ad Unit; Larger Digital Display Formats On the Rise

“Cartier. Le style et l’histoire”, which recently wrapped up at the Grand Palais in Paris, is the “first exhibition of this scale” to be held in Paris by the “Jeweler to Kings” in a quarter century.

The exhibition featured extraordinary jewelry, bejeweled accessories and timepieces, including the diamond “Halo” tiara, which was created by Cartier in 1936 for the British royal family, and worn by Kate Middleton for her wedding to Prince William.

We want to share one takeaway… Cartier’s use of a 300 x 600 online ad unit to promote this exhibition.

We have used this larger ad format for our clients’ shows, and have been impressed with the results across multiple metrics: CTR, interaction rates and expansion rates.  We have seen CTR deltas 6x the average for standard banners on our clients’ best performing 300 x 600 creative assets.  (Want to see how your creative assets perform vs. the industry, and how various ad sizes/formats perform relative to one another?  Check out Google’s Display Benchmarks tool.)

The 300 x 600 format stands out, offers a richer visual canvas and is ideal for rich media and video but you also need to consider the following…

There is far less ad inventory available for 300 x 600s than for the “Big 3” i.e. 300 x 250, 728 x 90 and 160 x 600 formats, which means you need to consider if you can achieve the scale you want with this format against your target audiences.

We have seen wide KPI variances within the 300 x 600 format for different clients’ creative for the simple reason that there are multiple variables which affect KPIs i.e. creative, context, offer, etc. Ad size plays just one part so while average CTRs are higher for 300 x 600s than for the “Big 3” that does not mean it is an automatic ROI booster for you.  Why?  See the next point.

300 x 600s cost more and cost differentials can be significant vs. the “Big 3” so you need to decide if the lift you get in your target KPIs justifies the increased cost.  You also need to factor in reduction in frequency i.e. given the same budget if you are spending more on each ad, you won’t be able to run as many.

If you are searching for new ways to boost results from your online advertising, think beyond the “Big 3” and optimize your portfolio of creative assets by testing some of today’s larger formats but don’t forget to factor in the considerations listed above.

Posted on March 5, 2014