 
avant|marketer: But, isn't this the same vision that those in the Publishing and Advertising worlds had with respect to the 468x60 Banner? That, in other words, if advertisers can find ways to better utilize the Standard Banner, in terms of harnessing creative ...
Dick Hopple: But if you can only use the 12K File Size and have one line of copy, how effective can you be. If that kind format was highly desirable to advertisers, you would see them spending more than 2% of the advertising dollars in the United States on Outdoor Billboards; you would see them spending, seven, eight, or 9%, because that medium would have proven effective for them. In fact, it is not that effective for them. And, if they are not going to spend money there, they are not going to spend money on Banners, which have a similar effectiveness.
avant|marketer: But, the Tune-out that has occurred with respect to Banners has been almost of the entire format
, rather than a tune-out of say, particular advertisers' ads. Why do you believe this has been the case?
Dick Hopple: Because Banners are invisible.
If I go to CBS Sportsline to read about Northwestern University, I am going to read about Northwestern University, I'm not going to look all around the page for Banners. They're there, perhaps once-in-a-while one catches my eye, but, for the most part, they are part of the decoration of the page. How many billboards do you remember when you drive down the highway? And, yet, you [may have] seen 15 in a row.
When you're driving you're concentrating on the road.
avant|marketer: Jason McCabe Calacanis of Venture Reporter seems to have the same idea. That is to say, that it's not only that ads must be served in the content that they subsidize, but that, to be effective, they must also be partitioned-off from this content. This is one of the reasons, I believe, Calacanis advocates Rich Media ads that cover the entire page. If this is part of your rationale, why then, was the Superstitial not created as a true full-page format?
Dick Hopple: If you go back three years, the conventional wisdom of Publishers, technologists in the industry, and people in the press was that the Internet is different and that it would never accept truly intrusive advertising. The hope was that advertising could be more-or-less invisible and not affect the user, and yet advertisers would still pay for it.
These were bad assumptions. But, because the industry was making them, and also because web sites weren't ready to begin serving full-page ads, since they were afraid that users would feel that they had been taken away someplace off the site, we made a decision to move forward with an implementation of the Superstitial that involved screen-dominant windows, but which provided users reassurance that they are still on the site.
I think that the industry is now beyond these considerations, and so we have developed a full-page product that we will probably be introducing some time next year. I think that the industry is now ready for full-page ads.
avant|marketer: Some have suggested that full-page ads must be structured in such a fashion that users won't be able to close the windows in which they appear. Do you believe this is a viable option? And, is this a feature you are considering for the full-page release of the Superstitial?
Dick Hopple: No I don't think that you can do that. While television advertising pays for television content, the advertiser can't require me to sit there and watch an advertisement that I don't want to watch. And I don't think that you can do this on the Internet either. I think the user has to have the flexibility to get rid of the ad. It's the Advertiser's responsibility to make the ad relevant enough and interesting enough to make the user want to watch the ad.
avant|marketer: Finally, let's talk about Internet Content: Can Ad-supported Internet Content be a profitable business model?
Dick Hopple: Absolutely.
avant|marketer: Well, obviously, for many publishers - particularly those putting out higher-quality content involving relatively high production costs - Internet-based ad supported Content has failed to be profitable. What needs to be changed on the Publishing and Advertising sides of the equation in order to establish an environment in which profitability for Content providers can happen on a widespread basis? What is the Superstitial's role here?
Dick Hopple: If you look across all conventional media there are three attributes that define a truly mainstream medium for truly mainstream advertisers.
The first is that there has to be a really large-sized audience there, the second is that there has to be a format that allows advertisers to communicate with the effectiveness that they demand, and the third is that there has to be a set of standards that make it turnkey for them to do that.
If you accept these premises, and look at the Internet, it's clear that the Internet has a very large audience, has a very good demographic - on average, over all sites - and that it can be, therefore, highly appealing to mainstream advertisers. That's the first attribute.
But, the industry hasn't offered - before Superstitials - a format that advertisers think is effective. And, the ability to reach a great audience with a lousy message isn't that valuable. This is a serious problem.
The third area is standards. The Internet Advertising industry has absolutely not been able to come to grips with standards.
First, there is not a standard format. There are formats suggested by the IAB, but if you buy ten web sites in a flight of advertising, you are going to have to run six versions of a Banner, and that is not very efficient or cost-effective for agencies.
Also, there is no universally agreed upon definition of an "impression." Some sites define an "impression" as a call to a server, some sites define it as an ad leaving a server, and so on.
With Television you can produce one unit and you can run it on any Television station in the world, and the definition of an impression would be the same for each of those Television stations. It works the same way for print ads and Radio commercials. The Internet needs to have the same kind of standards that other media do.
What the Superstitial provides is a format that is as effective as Television, and that is based around a set of standards that agencies are used to from other media. You can produce one Superstitial and run it on every Superstitial-enabled web site, and the definition of an impression is the same for every Superstitial that runs.
If you combine the communication effectiveness of the Superstitial with the fact that the Superstitial adheres to well-defined, conventional standards, you have a format capable of appealing to mainstream advertisers and unlocking their budgets for publishers.
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