Creative Approach to Banners

From: Tod Foley <info_at_whatyouget.com>
Date: Fri 22 Dec 2000 14:19:42 -0500

This is a follow-up to the "Banner Alternatives"
thread, but it really has more to do with "Alternative
ways of using banners".

Like most, my company has witnessed a steady decline in
banner clickthroughs over the last couple years. We
believe the decline is a natural process (i.e., the
natural cycle of any new advertising technique
becoming tolerated, then accepted, then almost
automatically ignored). But we took it as a creative
challenge. Our response was to make our advertisers'
banners more attractive (in both senses of the word) -
by *framing* them in 600x100-pixel tables, graphically
as well as code-wise. We call these frames
"BannerBorders" (pedantic, but catchy).

We've been running banners with and without borders for
several months now, and we've found that we do get a
larger C/I ratio with the framed banners we do with
the ones simply sitting on the page. In fact, I
believe this approach may be capable of kicking new
life into the way people look at banner ads in
general. So I've decided to go one step further and
offer this technique to anyone who wants to try it
out. I've created an automated system for the
creation and distribution of BannerBorders, which can
be used by anyone and accessed from any website, and
graphic artist Torey Holmquist has created 100
graphical borders for the initial collection. This
email is my first public mention of the system, which
is now officially in Beta. BannersBorders work for
both IE and NS version 4+, and they are fully
compatible with code-based HTML links like those you
get from Commission Junction or LinkShare. We have
over 100 additional designs ready for release in
January and we've secured the domain name
bannerborders.com, so if this test run works you can
expect to hear a lot more from us!

The current distribution page for BannerBorders is
located at http://www.whatyouget.com/bannerborders/

http://www.bannerborders.com will be active as soon as
DNS propagation is completed in 2-3 days.

You are welcome to try them out and see if they improve
your C/I ratios. In fact, since this system is
brand-spanking-new, I'd really appreciate it if you
would let me know how they work for you. Seriously.
We're open to suggestions for new border designs, topic
categories, or co-branding deals. Even if you don't
end up liking them, maybe they'll give you some other
ideas about mounting banners in new ways. Given that
many people are predicting the death of banner ads and
the declining state of clickthroughs in general, we've
decided that this experiment is worth it. I believe
creative approaches like this might rejuvenate the
whole prospect of banner advertising.

- Tod Foley

As If Productions -
Interactive Worlds and Immersive Obsessions
http://www.asifproductions.com

WhatYouGet.com -
Alternative Gifts, Entertainment, News & Community
http://www.whatyouget.com





Received on Fri Dec 22 2000 - 13:19:42 CST