A problem facing publishers wanting to leverage the power of mobile advertising is the fact that the Online ad units they already have in their inventory simply won’t work on the mobile Web- forcing them to re-create their ads for smaller mobile screens.
To combat this problem on its own sites, The Weather Channel has become the first Online publisher to offer advertisers a seamless cross-platform experience between weather.com Online and weather.com on mobile. With its new 300×250 advertising unit available on the mobile Web for smart phones, TWC has just made things much easier for prospective advertisers.
This expansion from Online ad buys gives advertisers more access to mobile integration, easing the transition from Online to mobile Web and extending a campaign’s reach to The Weather Channel consumers, one of the largest digital audiences available at 45 million unique users a month.
A single ad buy that encompasses both Online and mobile delivers not only large audiences, but also outstanding ad awareness and purchase intent numbers higher than industry norms. TWC claims using mobile platforms deliver a 61 percent increase in ad awareness and a 17 percent increase in purchase intent, while weather.com Online sees a 174 percent increase in ad awareness and a 62 percent increase in purchase intent.
The cross-platform ad unit works by collapsing on mobile devices when recognized. It automatically opens upon page load to an expanded view of 300×250 for a few seconds before collapsing into a smaller size of 300×50. Once collapsed, the ad runs along the top banner position across all TWC mobile Web pages on smart phones- including the iPhone, iPod touch, Palm Pre and Palm Pixi, and all Android devices. The user then has the option to “click to expand” and “click to close” the ad unit via a text link.
It’s surprising that more Online publishers haven’t introduced cross-platform ad units, given the growing popularity of mobile advertising. New integrated platforms that come down the pipeline will undoubtedly have this functionality, but kudos to The Weather Channel for being the first.
