UKNM: The invisible banner?

[Robin Edwards]

Just a thought for the weekend (unless Sam's already vanished).


There's been some healthy debate about banners over the last week or so, and 

I'd like to start some more, or at least garner some opinions!


Although not perfect for measuring effectiveness, CTR seems to be our current 

best bet. But with typical CTR's of 2-5 percent, that's obviously a large 

percentage of people not clicking on the banner. A good deal of shouting has 

been done about increasing CTR using the kind of techniques that would have the 

ASA up in arms (naked women on banners, fake user interfaces, trademark 

infringements etc) - these are probably great techniques for clients who 

generate revenue from having visitors come to their front page, unwittingly 

download another banner, realise they've been duped and bugger off elsewhere. 

Obviously not good for a client with a precious brand, or one who requires site 

visitors to go on to make a retail transaction in order to generate easily 

tracked  or noticeable revenue. That is where the more "ethically acceptable" 

effectiveness techniques fit in.


However, I also believe in the power of branding, and the value of a brand 

awareness banner, which is clearly presenting a major problem when it comes to 

measuring effectiveness.


Ok, here comes the crunch - the danger of generalising and speculating about 

other Internet users. I must confess that although I have probably been 

presented with many 10's of thousands of banners over the last 5 or 6 years, I 

can recall very few indeed, and have at best clicked on about 30 of them. Of 

these, probably 10 were "trick" click-throughs (e.g. the banner has a text box 

on it and a search button to make you think you can find out about the best 

performing shares etc.) and 20 were for reasons of wanting to find out more 

about the product or service on offer. So basically, I ignore banners - shut 

them out, don't even see them. Regardless of how pretty they are, or how 

technical, or even how eye catching the headline or trick.


Now I  would also say, "Yes I ignore banners, but I am not the typical Internet 

user."


Or am I?


It is a bit worrying, because even brand awareness banners are generally lost 

on me. After a quick survey (everyone here, friends, family etc.) they all said 

pretty much the same thing.


I suppose what I'm ending up at is the same old problem of how on earth we 

measure the effectiveness of brand building banners. The old favourite, "We 

presented 100,000 banners to people on a car enthusiasts web site, and it was a 

car related banner, and we put in a frequency of once per user, so 100,000 

people saw your banner and they are all car enthusiasts etc." is presumably 

wayyyyyy off base.


Anyone want to work out how to measure IPPWALATT (impressions per people who 

actually looked at the thing) rate?


Have a great weekend.


Robin

--

Robin Edwards

Clockworx Design Limited

T: +44 1543 252370           F: +44 1543 420761

E:

robinclockworx [dot] co [dot] uk

     W: http://www.clockworx.co.uk/ 

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