One of primary reasons display advertising has been trending negative is because the ads are so easy to ignore. Most users have pop-up blockers, and the even if they don’t, the ads are often static and fairly bland. The effort to get display ads in front of internet users in a more prominent way, while also making sure they’re less visually offensive, is a major focus for many publishers.

One of the most prominent efforts is coming from Google (NSDQ: GOOG). Although the company is associated with the still-growing search-ad business, Google has been trying to build its display business through its DoubleClick unit. Last month, Google unveiled expandable display units, which open up when a user clicks on them.

At the same, the Online Publishers Association recently began testing new larger and more-interactive display formats among its 27 members. The three units in the test, which will be rolled out through July, are identified as “Fixed Panel,” whose dimensions are 336 wide x 860 tall and scroll up and down a page, following the user; the “XXL Box” (468 wide x 648 tall), which stands for “extra-large” and lets users “turn” a page within the ad; and the “Pushdown” (970 wide x 418 tall), which fills about half the screen at first, then rolls up to the top. The Interactive Advertising Bureau, too, is looking increasingly urgently for ways to revive display. At the trade group’s annual conference last month, IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg outlined plans to reconvene the IAB Ad Unit Standards Task Force, the group that oversees format standards for the industry.

A number of publishers participating in the OPA test have been looking at the display-unit proposals for a few months now. To get an early take on which units might hold the most appeal, I spoke to Fran Hauser, president of digital at Time Inc.‘s Style & Entertainment Group, and Martin Nisenholtz, founding chairman of the OPA and SVP of digital operations for The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT). Meanwhile, ad agencies are cheered that the industry is doing something about the online creativity issue, but caution that these moves will not lead to a quick turnaround and represent only a partial response to display’s problems.

—Display’s Enlightenment period: The NYTimes.com has gotten a lot of attention for the large Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Lowe’s ads that have been appearing on its homepage. While that has proved lucrative, the site hopes that kind of large-canvas ad will inspire more creativity as well. That could help publishers like the NYT better compete with the marketers themselves. Nisenholtz: “We’re trying to foster a creative renaissance among the ad agencies and give them the ability to do a lot more than they’ve done in the smaller ad formats. We also noticed that advertisers are looking to create a lot of interaction inside of their own sites. That can be challenging because click-through rates are very low across the internet. What we’re saying is, let’s give the advertisers enough size to import those applications into the advertising itself. So if somebody is on the NYTimes website, they don’t have to leave the site itself in order to interact with the advertisers’ application.”

—Assessing the formats: Time Inc.‘s entertainment unit has been experimenting with the pushdown format for the past few months. Hauser: “The goal is to have the pushdown unit on all Time Inc. websites. So far, we’ve seen engagement and click-throughs higher than standard units. But we haven’t had a consistent size. By being able to offer a more uniform size, it should inspire the agencies and marketers to get on board.” Nisenholtz: “My opinion doesn’t mean very much, it’s up to the agency and the client on how to use these formats. Each has its own strengths. The XXL format is probably the one that has the most elegant marriage of the advertisers’ position and the publishers’ content. It’s a clean, large format. It’s most like a magazine ad. It also has the interesting attribute to create a page turn. When you click on the page turn symbol, it expands to the full page. You can put multiple page turns on an ad. You could imagine something like an embedded free-standing insert or video on a page.” A NYTCo rep later added that the company plans to use all three of the formats and hasn’t decided yet on which one will be the standard.

—A partial solution: I spoke with Razorfish ECD Marc Lucas and media lead Sarah Baehr about the new standards. Lucas’ background includes traditional creative advertising, while Baehr has been serving on the IAB’s display task force. Both said that the standards are a good first step to curing what ails display. But mostly, this will address a production problem and not necessarily lead to a flowering of creativity across the industry. Ultimately, it’s a matter of where the ad dollars are aimed. “It comes down to figuring out what do you value.” Lucas said. “I come out of general advertising and used to lament, why doesn’t BBDO do great print? After all, they do great TV. The answer was that print was always secondary to TV. In many ways, digital has been secondary as well for a lot of agencies and advertisers.” So even more than new industry formats and standards for display ads, the economy could bring changes to advertisers’ priorities, Baehr added. “From a creative point of view, the poor economy is forcing advertisers to challenge the way spending has been typically ordered. After all, in good times, it’s easy to write the same check year after year.”

—Not the size of the ad, but how you use it: It’s possible that the bigger canvases for ad placements could inspire more spending, Baehr suggested. For example, Time Inc.‘s Hauser noted that advertisers seem willing to pay more to integrate video into the company’s sites. “They want to participate in sponsoring polls and quizzes. These new ad units make it more attractive for them to do so.” And by commanding higher prices, advertisers could value display more—so long as publishers can show engagement metrics. Baehr: “The traditional view of ROI has been around cost per metric. I’m certain that that the larger units, and depending on how the pricing manifests itself, could deliver on marketers’ demands. The question is, do these units allow for a deeper level of engagement? Along with the creative gains expect to see with rich environment. And that will lead to the advertisers asking if they’re getting the same impact as print or TV ad? As budgets are becoming tighter, getting smarter, better results about awareness is crucial.”

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