While we congratulate companies who have jumped on the tablet advertising bandwagon, we suggest that they look closely at how they are constructing their tablet advertisements. Early adopters are failing to take advantage of tablet orientation changes (portrait to landscape) and, more importantly, the interactive capabilities of tablets.
In fact, most tablet advertisements are simply replicas of print advertisements. There is little use of animations or interactive features, other than a less-than-innovative URL inclusion. In terms of orientation change, the only alterations made to print advertisements are generally a slight cropping or re-positioning. Even worse, sometimes this cropping isn’t even taken into account and users have to scroll across the screen to see the entire advertisement. Much of this also applies to mobile advertising too.
This is perhaps a reflection of the nature of the marketing industry. Are marketers all too focused on ‘thinking outside the square’ and ‘looking at the big picture’ to take into account the all-important details? Are we so busy with our broad brush strokes that we have forgotten about the end-user experience? Maybe it is time to get back to basics.
There are so many possibilities out there when it comes to tablet advertising. If we start with the basics, make sure that a tablet advertisement changes its headline, background artwork and product shot when the tablet is rotated. This, in effect, gives advertisers the opportunity to include two advertisements for the price of one.
With technologies such as HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript, developers have a wealth of tools and platforms to bring ads to life. The only limit is your imagination.
The next level is, of course, to introduce some interactivity (touch, tap and swipe) into tablet advertisements. Include calls to action: maybe an extra button for product details or a ‘shop now’ button which redirects users to websites on which they can buy the product and view other products in the range. If you have the budget, then why not incorporate an interactive game, animation or a video.
The use of tablets is on a steady rise in Australia. According to Nielsen, approximately 39% of homes will be using tablets by the end of this year. Advertisers should get on board properly and take full advantage of this growing medium.
Sally has worked in marketing, communications, and PR for over 15 years. She is the Chief Wordsmith at Wordly: a copywriting and content marketing agency that works predominantly with WordPress powered websites.
While we congratulate companies who have jumped on the tablet advertising bandwagon, we suggest that they look closely at how they are constructing their tablet advertisements. Early adopters are failing to take advantage of tablet orientation changes (portrait to landscape) and, more importantly, the interactive capabilities of tablets.
