According to The Wall Street Journal, AOL Inc. has enlisted Hearst Corp.'s help in its effort to "supersize" its online ads.
AOL
started running larger versions of ads on its own sites in September
and has been pushing the industry to adopt that practice. Hearst is the
first outside company to follow suit, and will sell the ads to its
clients, paying a technology fee to AOL. AOL is hoping these ads will
restore revenue growth.
The
newer ads are roughly four times the size of regular ones, and include
space for up to three graphic elements (videos, games, coupons, etc.).
The AOL unit is one of six larger, more interactive formats, designed to
make the viewer pay more attention, that the internet-ad industry is
trying to make standard.
Dubbed
Project Devil, the new ad unit also sold to brands like Verizon
Wireless and Duracell. Some media buyers are hesitant to build the Devil
unit only to find out it only runs on AOL.
AOL says that the new ad format keeps viewers attention for 47 seconds more than normal ads, and 24 seconds more video playback.
