RE: UKNM: Brand-building banners

[Ben Metcalfe]

(BTW poor placements: I was recently visiting FreeServe Auctions

(fsauctions.com) and saw on their front page that the advert was for

QXL.com!)


On a similar note I was discussing adverts with an 'expert' - he recommended

that banner ads should be in the form of Operating System style messages

(I'm sure you've seen the ones I mean).  This to me seems really stupid as

it only leads to confusion - people thinking that the message really is a

system message and clicking it to find out more.  His response was that your

product is then exposed to a greater number of people - my response was

surely if you are paying cost per click then this is just going to eat into

your advertising budget.  His further response was that


	a) many ad contracts are cost per mille (i.e. exposure rather than

click-through) and


	b) that with most products it was impossible to give a clear enough

introduction to the product through a tiny banner ad - by giving the user a

full page you have a better chance of them buying your product (even though

they may not have been originally interested in it.)


I have even heard that some of the ad companies use their sophisticated

advert tracking mechanisms to sniff the user's OS through the operating

system and give them the banner that is correct to their os (i.e. a Windows

banner on a windows os, a Mac banner on a Mac os)



To me this throws up three interesting issues:


1) False/unethical advertising - especially when adverts such as "Your

internet connection is too slow, click here to fix the problem" appear

inside a OS-style box

2) The comment that "banner adverts were not suitable to introduce a product

and engage the user to an extent that they wanted to find out more"

3) There are a lot of stupid people using the Internet who do not know what

the difference is between an advert and a real operating system.  However,

joking aside, these banners do work and their use will only continue as more

and more 'newbies' access the internet.


-----Original Message-----

From: will simmonds [

willseuropean-internet [dot] com (mailto:willseuropean-internet [dot] com)

]

Sent: 15 November 2000 09:39

To:

uk-netmarketingchinwag [dot] com

Subject: UKNM: Brand-building banners (poor placements)



Whilst we are on the subject of banners does anybody have any more examples

of

really bad banner placements.

I've dug out the Jill Dando / Computer Weekly one from the archive but does

anybody else have any more actual examples.

thanks

Will


Sam Michel wrote:


> Not wishing to stir up a storm, oh, OK, maybe I am. I spotted this snippet

> in the recent edition of Iconocast:

>

> http://www.iconocast.com/dotcom/advertising/banner-effectiveness.html

>

> The premise of the article is that response rates i.e. click throughs for

> banner advertising are plummeting, but so are direct marketing campaigns.

> Their survey results point at banners being effective for brand building.

I

> know this has been a hot topic on the list before and since it's been a

> while, I thought I'd bring it up again.


[Sam says: msg chopped]



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