Bonzai launches new ‘Fillboard’ to disrupt traditional ‘billboard’ ad formats

Bonzai, The Creative Automation Platform, trusted by Australia and New Zealand’s largest publishers, agencies, and advertisers, has today announced the launch of its latest offering—Fillboard, a premium digital ad format aimed at enhancing viewability and user experience (UX) for ads served across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.

Arguably, the success and efficiency of any brand’s display ad campaign hinges on the single most crucial marketing metric—ad viewability. The ad viewability score indicates the likelihood of the intended audience seeing the ad, gauging its presence on a user’s screen upon a page or app loading, and its duration of visibility during an advertising impression.

The higher the ad viewability score, the more improved the campaign performance report will be, heightening the demand for the ad inventory. One of the industry’s best practices to maximise viewability, an imperative for both publishers and advertisers, is to capitalise on ad formats that will hold the viewer’s attention.

Disrupting the simplistic billboard ad format

Transforming the rapidly changing digital ad industry once again, Bonzai launched Fillboard, an innovatively designed ad format that can help advertisers capture and hold user attention without disturbing the experience of the site content. This powerful tool empowers advertisers seeking high-impact and memorable campaigns.

Key features of Bonzai Fillboard:

• • Strategic Placement: Positioned at the top of the page for non-intrusive visibility, enhancing viewability and brand recall.
• • Viewability: The ad format powered by Bonzai’s TruView technology delivers unparalleled viewability.
• • Dynamic Display: Expands into an attention-grabbing, edge-to-edge banner on page load and seamlessly condenses to a narrow strip upon scrolling for an engaging UX.
• • Cross-Screen Compatibility: Optimised for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices, ensuring consistent and engaging display across platforms.
• • Flexibility in Size: Advertisers gain creative control with nine size options, allowing for customization and impactful campaigns.
• • Xpress Build Variants: Streamlines campaign launch with quick-and-easy build variants, ensuring a hassle-free execution process.
• • Efficient Setup: Advertisers can kick-start campaigns within a few hours, making it ideal for contextual targeting on article pages.

Rahul Pandey (pictured below), founder and CEO at Bonzai, highlighted the pivotal role of user attention in digital advertising: “With a keen understanding of how the slightest boost in user attention can bring significant gains in ad awareness, Bonzai Fillboard was designed with care. We are offering a solution that helps avoid outdated intrusive methods, prioritising contextual advertising that aligns with user intent. Moving away from formats that interrupt, cover site content or don’t work across devices, advertisers can now utilise Fillboard, a fresh way to connect with all their audiences and stand out in the crowded digital landscape.”

From a publisher’s perspective, optimising viewable impressions for advertisers is crucial to bolster their confidence in online spending. Using the MRC definition of ad viewability, a study by Google concluded that viewable display ads across the Google Display Network had a 4X higher lift in conversions than display ads that didn’t meet the MRC standard.

Last year, the Bonzai team took a deep dive into ad format innovation, intent on surfacing a solution to the challenge that every publisher must tackle. Following the launch of Fillboard in H1 of 2024, there is great excitement to see how publishers adopt this new ad format, which can positively influence ad revenues.

Says Ash Tanwar, head of ad operations at The Guardian: “Our long-standing partnership with Bonzai has played a pivotal role in shaping our vision for a product geared towards enhancing ad effectiveness. Close collaboration with the team has culminated in an ad format that ensures heightened viewability for our readers, thanks to its ingenious cross-screen experience. With initial testing already proving to have promising results, this new product in market will undoubtedly excite our advertisers.”

Bonzai Fillboard comes just months after the launch of its BrandStory. These innovative products are addressing the surging demand from brands worldwide, looking to drive real results from their advertising spend.

Find out more about Bonzai Fillboard here.