27 Huge Publishers Join To Replace The Banner
27 publishers with a reach of about 109 million unique visitors per month — that's 66% of the total U.S. Internet audience — have agreed to try one of three new online ad formats sometime before July. The publishers are all members of the online publishers association (OPA).
Context & Ripple Effects
The OPA’s coordinated test extends a publisher-cooperation pattern visible in the 2008 alliance among four news companies to sell advertising online. By putting three alternative units before an audience estimated at 109 million monthly U.S. visitors, the group gives advertisers a single trial across a sizable set of publisher sites rather than isolated format experiments.
First-order effects
- The 27 OPA members will test the same set of three new display formats before July, creating a shared opportunity for advertisers to buy and evaluate alternatives to standard banners across their combined audience.
Second-order effects
- AOL’s Platform-A, which had reported reach exceeding nine in 10 U.S. internet users, faces a more organized publisher-side effort to make premium-site display inventory easier to package at scale.
Third-order effects
- If publisher groups continue coordinating ad formats and sales, display advertising can shift from site-by-site banner placement toward standardized inventory offerings controlled by publisher coalitions.
The trend: Publishers are using collective scale and common ad products to strengthen their position against broad ad-network distribution.