CNN, ESPN, the New York Times and other companies in the Online Publishers Association (OPA) will roll out three new display ad formats in July.

I whipped up a couple mockups based on the OPA's specs. Click any of the following images for larger versions.

From the OPA: "The Fixed Panel (recommended dimension is 336 wide x 860 tall), which looks naturally embedded into the page layout and scrolls to the top and bottom of the page as a user scrolls."

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From the OPA: "The XXL Box (recommended dimension is 468 wide x 648 tall), which has page-turn functionality with video capability."

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From the OPA: "The Pushdown (recommended dimension is 970 wide x 418 tall), which opens to display the advertisement and then rolls up to the top of the page."

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One sentence in the OPA's press release touches on a topic that deserves more play: fewer ads = more value:

Increase the relative proportion of advertising space (in a single unit) to editorial content and, where possible, run fewer but more captivating ads on the page. [Emphasis added.]

The "fewer is better" movement is gaining some traction, and in one case it led to a significant uptick in click-throughs:

SmartMoney cut the number of units on a page from three to two, eliminating a skyscraper ad that ran toward the bottom along the edge. The result: a 21% increase in aggregate click-through rates. [Link added.]

The same Advertising Age article features this awesome observation from Augustine Fou, senior VP-digital lead at MRM Worldwide:

"...advertisers are starting to realize simply having hundreds of millions of impressions isn't that important if they're getting 0.002% click-through rates."

Testify, Augustine!

We may eventually see one, big, useful ad instead of six blocks of poorly-targeted material. That'll be a good day on the Interweb.

Hand-Picked Related Links:

• 27 Huge Publishers Join To Replace The Banner (Silicon Alley Insider)
• SmartMoney Finds Using Fewer Ads Can Boost Click-Through (Advertising Age)
• The Realities of Big Web Traffic and Advertising (O'Reilly TOC)
• The basics of Web advertising (The Independent Publisher)