Design has become a numbers game lately. As the internet develops and matures so does how we handle advertising. Accurate statistical data can now be gathered to track the progress of an ad campaign, to whom the target audience as and even be assign a dollar value according to how much direct revenue it has brought in. While to most this is great news, to me this is a little sad.
Lately I have been in a design hole lately. Clients want results, they want them fast and they want them cheep. They expect all of this out of 125×125 pixel ads. No longer do I paint beautiful thought provoking ad campaigns across a wide canvas of direct mail, billboards, newspaper, radio and tv. Now I get to test my creative abilities in a 125×125 box. (That is roughly 1.75 inches by 1.75 inches.) I am all for design challenges, but it now has turned into a day-in-day-out thing. If its not 125×125, it’s 800×125, 120×75, 600×100. Email blast, cubes, headers – it is all becoming the same to me now.
Not only that, but clients (as well as myself) want and expect to see results – or at least the numbers of people who clicked on the ad, where the ad was located, where they went to, how long they stayed there, where they went to next – and what I am planning on doing about it. It’s all about the numbers.
Now the internet lets you do some pretty cool little things such as build personal url’s, geo-target clients, have real time conversations and monitor your business in real time. This is all great and I welcome all of it. However most clients are uneducated in the ways of the internet and are feed a lot of half truths from sales reps. (I constantly have to tear down misnomers and flat out lies told to clients form newspaper sales reps in our area. 1) Because they really don’t have a clue what they are selling and 2) they really don’t care what they are selling – “just show the clients big numbers.”) This makes my job even harder. I have to convince clients they they shouldn’t care to much for impressions or any of the other BS feed to them but actual look at the hard numbers (which are really easily found). I expect to see this data because I have taught my clients to see this data.
For me the really challenge is that I wear many hats. I am designer, so I want to do big bold stuff. I am a novice web guy, who knows enough to know that he doesn’t know what he should. And I’m in marketing, meaning I know that the numbers matter. I see the whole picture.
The world of 125×125 is forcing many companies to become multifaceted in number reporting and design. That is where I am at right now. Show me results 125×125, if not start all over again until you find one that does. Don’t become outdated and keep me posted of progress. Oh yeah, since you are so small 125×125, you do not cost much money to produce right?
That is one of the main elements clients do not understand. 125×125 is hard to design for. It takes just as long to knock out an 125×125 online ad as it does a postcard. The client gets pixels in return and doesn’t value it the same way as a printed product. They think that since it is only pixels and so small that it should cost them next to noting to produce. It is even hard to convince them that statistical data is valuable.
125×125 is become the norm. So I better get used to it. I have to reeducate my clients of its value, try and get others to do the same, and be happy about it. I know there is a ton of cool stuff you can do with 125×125 and/or its linking url, I just have to reinvent myself with the knowledge of how to achieve it. The designer inside me may have to step aside for the numbers guy and the programmer hopefully hidden in me.
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I remember when I hated doing 4×6 postcard direct mail pieces, trying to cram all of the clients text into that little space. I whole heatedly outright love them now. Bring them on BABY!
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I read this article in the NY Times that got me thinking about all of this stuff.
