And, why? It’s simple. There’s a great ad filter on Super Bowl Sunday called “really expensive media time,” which ensures that only the best ads get airtime. I have to hand it to the car guys–Kia, Chrysler and Audi… and the Moto Tablet had me thinking Apple showed up too. And who hasn’t tried to get that email back like the Bridgestone guy running all over town?

The Super Bowl is proof that Americans actually want ads one day of the year, but what about all the other days? That’s the job of AdKeeper: to be Advertising’s Super Bowl the other 364 days. With AdKeeper consumers can gather just the ads of interest and bring them together in one place. Keep the best, toss the rest.

People actually like the ads they want, that are delivered when they want, when they have the time and when they’re in the market for specific goods or services. And why wouldn’t they?

People use ads, every day. Ads save us money, help us research products, explore what to see, do or where to go. They keep us connected with our favorite brands and the best ones entertain us.

The problem with online ads is that they try to interrupt when we’re busy doing something else. Content is our primary purpose for visiting sites; the ads are secondary. So, AdKeeper is designed to help people who want to engage with advertising as a primary activity–later, when they have time.

Ok, we like ads, but why Keep?

• I’m busy; I came online to read or find something, and while the ad messaging is appealing, I just have to keep doing what I’m doing. I’ll Keep that ad for later.
• I’m in the market for something and want to compare all the options side-by-side when I have time. Keep for later.
• The ad is personal in nature (and they all are, right? Medical, job hunting – even shopping for a car) and I want to dive in when no one’s looking over my shoulder. Keep for later.
• I want to share the ad with someone else. Keep to share.

OK, we like ads, Keeping seems to make sense, but can it be easy enough?

The trick was getting all the friction out for the consumer. AdKeeper lets users Keep ads anytime they see the K. No pre-registration, no set-up, no software, no downloads, no browser extensions, no plug-ins – nothing. Click. Kept. Period. Click the K and they continue whatever they were doing. Do it over and over. Then, whenever they’re ready to engage with their Kept ads, they just click through any K, on any ad, anywhere and they’re delivered to their personal, private Keeper.

The truth about human nature.

People save the ads they want.

We have drawers filled with coupons and wallets and handbags filled with useful ads we’ve torn out. We have ads sprinkled into our stacks of paper. Hairstyles, resorts, the latest fashions, the newest vehicle features…. we’re busy so we grab these ads and keep on going.

And, we love the ads on niche Web sites and buy special interest magazines like Field and Stream, Ski and Vogue as much for the ads as for the content.

The fact is, 90 percent of people have torn an ad from a magazine. Over three billion coupons were redeemed last year, just for packaged goods.

People do it now. People want it online.

Most of us want to Keep ads. Not everyone, but most.

Multiple focus groups had consumers literally jumping out of their seats asking when this tool could be theirs to use. 56 percent of Internet users intend to use the service based on two different Nielsen studies.

Of the 56 percent who said they intended to use AdKeeper 71 percent intend to use it two times a week and 27 percent, more than five times a week.

Consumers also said they like AdKeeper for all these reasons: It’s easy – 87 percent; Saving for later – 87 percent; It’s secure – 86 percent; Sharing – 78 percent; Top ads showcased – 77 percent; Value – 76 percent; Organization – 75 percent; Money saving – 72 percent. And 69 percent were surprised that this has never been done before.

This behavior simply hasn’t yet migrated from offline to online since there wasn’t a mechanism to make it possible.

The fundamental construct of Internet advertising is backwards

We moved from linear TV to the interactive Internet but didn’t move from interruptive to invitational advertising. Advertising has historically relied on being interruptive, often annoyingly so.

That’s over. Users are in control on the Internet, like never before. Simply: interruptive advertising in a dynamic medium is illogical. What’s crazy is that it took us 15 years to create Keeping. IMPRESSIONS and CLICKS are fine, but KEEPS are a big deal.

We don’t dislike individual ads when they’re properly targeted, at the right time in the right place, with respectful presentation. When we get what we want, we can organize it, sift it, make it useful and control it – advertising is awesome.

Online advertising is broken, but not beyond repair.

After 15 years of phony input fields, punching monkeys, and every annoying trick in the book, you’d think that we’ve destroyed the medium, that we’ve created 100 percent banner blindness. Luckily, it’s not true.

While banner blindness gets worse by the day, the good news is there is still time to fix it. In fact, the best online ads are able to rise above the noise. The Online Publishers Association released a fascinating eye tracking study last November that showed 96 percent of people noticed OPA ad units while naturally surfing and 67 percent looked back before leaving the page. Imagine, instead of just looking back, now you could hold onto the ad and engage on your terms.

That said, the industry needs more clicks–and today, clicks on ads may be the most pitiful thing to happen in the history of the Internet. .09 percent are clicking, less than one in 1000. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. And, with 28 percent of consumers’ media time spent online, but only 13 percent of the ad spend, Internet ad models need some serious fixing.

Respect for consumers and putting them in control is long overdue, and the pent up demand from our advertising partners shows that we’re not alone in craving this change. There’s a reason more, bigger and better brands have signed on with AdKeeper than any new media effort, ever.

The industry’s role in Keeping

AdKeeper is good for everyone in the ad ecosystem. We’re out to create extra impressions and deeper engagement – more clicks, actions, sharing, printing, likes, fans, tweets, conversions and enhanced CRM. This is good for advertisers, publishers and most importantly, consumers.

The more ads with Keep Buttons, the more people will see them, understand them and want to use them. We know for a fact that people want to Keep ads that make a difference in their lives. Now we – all of us – need to help make it happen.

The Internet is the greatest medium of all time. Super Bowl Sunday proves that people like ads that can make an impact. AdKeeper makes it Super Bowl Sunday for advertising, every day.

So say Web publishers who have been running supersized, don’t-you-dare-look-away-from-me ads for the past year.

Even better, the ad sellers insist–they have scientific proof to back up their claim.

That comes via industry trade group Online Publishers Association, which commissioned a cool/creepy test: Monitor Web surfers’ eye movements and emotional responses when they encounter giant ad units like the “XXL” and the “Pushdown.” The study placed surfers in front of sites like the New York Times and showed them big ads from the likes of Microsoft’s Bing.

Short version of the conclusion: Put a really big ad in front of someone, and they’ll notice it.

“They have stopping power,” in the words of OPA president Pam Horan.

Longer take:

• 96 percent of surfers in the study looked at the giant ads when they showed up onscreen.
• 67 percent of surfers looked at the giant ads during the first 10 seconds they visited a Web page, then came back and looked at them again.
• Surfers who looked at giant ads after spending more than 10 seconds on a Web page “generated a stronger emotional response” to the ads than to the stuff on the rest of the page.
• Surfers liked the ads, giving them a 6.3 ranking out of a possible 9.

No need to tell you how much salt to use when reading research, commissioned by people who sell advertising, that concludes that advertising works. Still, this is interesting stuff. At the very least, you’ll want to skim through the report, embedded below.

For starters, it includes cool/creepy descriptions of the “biometric research” that research firm Innerscope performed for the OPA, which involves contraptions like the ones pictured on the left.

But more broadly, it gives you a sense of what Web publishers are trying to avoid: Advertising that most surfers have learned to ignore after years of training. (Except for Google’s search results ads–they love those, which is why Google posted $2 billion in profits last quarter).

On the other hand, the study doesn’t tell you how the new gigantosorous ads perform compared to run-of-the-mill Web ads. And most important, it doen’t attempt to figure out what marketers most want to know: Whether the new ads–or any Web display ads–actually help them move product.

That one has gone unanswered for 16 years, but it may still be some time before we get an answer.

OPA_AdUnitResearch_Final

Some sites, like Discovery’s Planet Green, have already been playing around with the new OPA ads, but if you haven’t seen them yet, you can do it with a little bit of imagination. Think of a traditional Web ad as the equivalent of a yard sign. The new ones are billboards.

Like your descriptions more literal? Here’s the technical description of the new formats. By way of comparison, the column of text you’re reading now is 350 pixels wide.

The Fixed Panel: 336 wide x 700 tall, remains constant as the user scrolls to the top and bottom of the page.
The XXL Box: 468 wide x 648 tall, opens for seven seconds to 936 wide x 648 tall with 1/24x frequency.
The Pushdown: 970 wide x 418 tall, opens to display the advertisement and then after seven seconds, rolls up to 970 wide x 66 tall, with 1/24x frequency.

And um, here’s what a really big ad might look like on your desktop (click to enlarge).

If you’re knee-deep in the online advertising business, you’ll be interested in why these ad formats are being pushed by the Online Publishers Association instead of the better-known Interactive Advertising Bureau. I have heard some baroque/petty descriptions of squabbling between the two groups, whose membership overlaps but isn’t identical. But maybe we’ll come back to that some other time.

For now, let’s see if these deliver as advertised–that is, whether they get marketers to spend more money on the Web, without just plowing the money into Google (GOOG).