The Problem
How might we increase the number of ads types to sell to advertisers?
The Context
HBO Max, known for having one of the highest CPM dollar values among all services, had set a strategic goal to increase their ad revenue. Their approach to achieve this was by diversifying the types of ad opportunities they offered to their advertising sponsors. This initiative was aimed at not only attracting a broader range of advertisers but also creating more dynamic and engaging ad content, thereby creating potential for higher viewer engagement and ad effectiveness.
HBO Max's standard brand block format features brands like Volkswagen. HBO Max.
This particular ad type that was chosen, called Intermissions, was a unique ad type that would essentially show an single long 2 minute ad at a sensible middle point of a movie instead of multiple ads dispersed throughout the viewing experience.
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Design Choices
The ads team request was to create 4 ads that were essentially the same with slight variations for A/B testing. All the ads required an output format of:
16x9 video
HD video resolution
H264 encoding
Delivered as .mp4 files
In addition to the technical requirements, the team provided me with static visual mockups made in Figma that were to help with the creation of the high fidelity video demos.
Figma mockups or storyboards of what the ad would visually look like over a sequence of key moments.
This particular ad type that was chosen, called Intermissions, was a unique ad type that would essentially show an single long 2 minute ad at a sensible middle point of a movie instead of multiple ads dispersed throughout the viewing experience.
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Key features
Parallax Animation
With the static assets provided there was a need for additional motion that could be applied to static assets to help provide a sense of dynamism. These assets were provided in 4k and allowed for the parallax to work as image transitions over the 1920x1080 screen.
10s video clips
As an alternative to static images, the background images were swapped with videos to see if there would be any preference from viewers towards background videos or static backgrounds.
Big timer
A stylistic choice to differentiate the ad timer from the typical ad badge and timer combination with a large ticker style timer. This was done using an AE animation of numbers animating in sequence downward, with a mask to show only the number of the current time.
Research Findings
Here are a few of the research findings that were discovered during the A/B testing:
Big timer was popular with users but posed a technical challenge for WarnerMedia Technical Operations instead of the stander ad badge timer
Suppressing ad badge timer while the Big Timer is shown required additional development
Research showed both Static and Dynamic ads tested well and better than control ads
Brand recall did not improve
The Big Timer, was best received by participants, providing the HBO Max halo effect (positive user sentiment)
Intermission badge was chosen not to go forward with due to technical restraints, and a lack data supporting this design change
Key Takeaways & Learnings
I gained insights into the Ads products and user research at Warner Media
I contributed to my OKRs for HBO Max
We identified 6 key findings
We validated 10 out of 15 hypotheses
We determined the 2 best-performing Intermission Ad concepts based on user testing