The Yahoo! Front Page is sensitive to balancing the needs and challenges of our consumers and advertisers. In order to maintain that balance, a set of advertising creative guidelines have been developed for the Yahoo! Front Page. These guidelines are a reflection of our learnings and 3rd party research and are used to determine final approval on ALL creative that runs on the Yahoo! Front Page. Yahoo! has the right to refuse creative that does not comply with our specs or our guidelines.
The goals of the guidelines are to:
- Maintain the highest
creative design standards on the Yahoo!
Front Page (the most trafficked site on
the Web and one of the main front doors
to Yahoo!).
- Provide a common set of expectations
for Yahoo Front Page advertisers.
Guidelines:
- Clear messaging
Message must be understandable, concise, not deceptive, and not offensive to the users.
Employ a simple, short, consistent message. Make the words easy to read (avoid small font). Develop creative that takes advantage of message building. Don?t hesitate to keep taglines and taglines? placement constant. (There is a direct positive correlation between branding value of online advertising and the frequency of exposures of taglines.*)
Examples of clear messaging: http://public.yahoo.com/~wwwads/archives/tivo/061207/
http://public.yahoo.com/~wwwads/archives/paramount/070518/
- Clear branding/logo
The brand or advertiser must be clear, readable and recognizable.
Front Page advertising must clearly show the advertiser?s logo or company/product brand. The creative must include clear company attribution. Research shows that whenever possible, to improve the clarity of the message, logos/branding should be larger than 14% of the advertising size and be prominently displayed in every frame.* (The overall lift in brand awareness for those with omnipresent logos is 7% vs. 3% for those with sporadic logos.*)
Example of clear branding/logo: http://public.yahoo.com/~wwwads/archives/general_motors/070210/
http://public.yahoo.com/~wwwads/archives/ups/070122/
- Not cluttered
Front Page advertising must remain uncluttered.
To increase the potential to raise brand awareness and brand recall, the number of elements in a piece of creative must be limited. Research shows that designers should keep their creative elements short and to the point with no more than 16 textual or graphical elements per frame.* An element is defined as a word or image present in the creative.*
Examples of uncluttered design: http://public.yahoo.com/~wwwads/archives/ford/070904/
http://public.yahoo.com/~wwwads/archives/warner_bros/070216/
- Clear call to action
Direct Response campaigns:
Direct response campaigns should have a clear/strong call to action. Overall interactions with creative and the volume of traffic generated by a promotion tend to be higher for creative with a clear call to action. For example ?click here to apply?, ?watch trailer now?.
Examples of clear call to action: http://public.yahoo.com/~wwwads/archives/lenscrafter/070813/
http://public.yahoo.com/~wwwads/archives/paramount/070703/
Branding campaigns:
Front Page branding focused events must clearly show the advertiser?s logo or company/product brand throughout the animation sequence. If the creative is static, company/brand logo must be present and highly visible.
For Pharmaceutical companies, that does not include messaging the drug name. However, the creative must include clear company attribution. Research shows that whenever possible, to improve the clarity of the message, logos/branding should be larger than 14% of the advertising size and be prominently displayed in every frame.* Yahoo! requires the logo/branding to be approximately 140x25 or 3,500 square pixels
Examples of clear branding: http://public.yahoo.com/~wwwads/archives/hp/070921/index.html
http://public.yahoo.com/~wwwads/archives/masterfoods/070206/
- Animation
Animation should be short, smooth, and
at a pace that keeps the viewer interested.
Total animation limit on the Front Page
is 15 seconds.
Examples of good animation: http://public.yahoo.com/~wwwads/archives/warner_bros/070713/
http://public.yahoo.com/~wwwads/archives/infiniti/061128/
- Overall high quality creative design
Images, logos, fonts must be of high resolution/good
quality. Colors and overall design of
the creative must be consistent with the
overall ?premium look and feel?
of the Yahoo! Front Page. Designers should
avoid: (i) loud, clashing colors (ii)
poor resolution images and fonts
(iii) intrusive, high- annoyance design
elements (e.g. pulsating, flashing, or
blinking animation).
Examples of quality design: http://public.yahoo.com/~wwwads/archives/ford/070514/
http://public.yahoo.com/~wwwads/archives/lenscrafter/070813/
- Yahoo! Ad Content Standards and Guidelines
Front Page advertising must meet the Yahoo!
Ad Content Standards and Guidelines.
Check with your Yahoo! Sales Representative
for details.
- Weapons
Weapons may not be shown in any manner that depicts violence in an advertisement on the Yahoo! Front Page.
* Source: Dynamic Logic, Ad Relevance, 24 7 Media |
