eMarketer: What makes an effective online brand campaign?

Joseph Zahtila: That is the $64 million question. First and foremost, you need to reach your audience. Second, make sure that the message that you’re delivering is appropriate for that target audience.

When we see a campaign fail, it’s typically because of one of those two things and generally it’s more on the side of the creative than it is on the side of reaching the audience.

eMarketer: Are you talking about the creative in terms of the message points, the copy or everything?

Mr. Zahtila: Everything. It could be from something as simple and stupid as having an irreverent ad placed in front of a rather affluent, educated, older audience. Or it could be something a little more or less intuitive, where for whatever reason, the color, the layout, the messaging, just doesn’t work for the target.

eMarketer: Which ad formats and placements seem to work best for branding?

Mr. Zahtila: Well there’s a lot of different ways to define what works, but in terms of what has the highest increase in those who were exposed to the ad versus those who were not exposed, the greatest increases would be seen in video and rich media interactive executions.

eMarketer: When you say rich media, do you mean Flash-based ads?

Mr. Zahtila: Yes, generally Flash or DHTML. [Editor’s note: Dynamic HTML is used for interactive and animated Websites.]

eMarketer: The banner ad has taken a beating in some quarters. Are banner ads still relevant?

Mr. Zahtila: In terms of cost-effectiveness, the banner, believe it or not, can be quite effective—although you won’t see the highest overall increases in awareness, association, favorability or intention in a banner compared with a large rectangle, a video ad, or Flash or DHTML.

In terms of cost per impact, banners tend to do very well because they’re relatively inexpensive. You’re not going to see the greatest impact from a banner, but in terms of bang for the buck, the banner can work well.