What About Banner?

From: Leslie Laredo <leslie_at_laredogroup.com>
Date: Fri 14 Dec 2001 17:25:45 -0500

What About Banner? I moderated a panel this week
at InternetWorld on "The Buyers' Guide to New
Interactive Platforms, New Ad Formats and Units
and New Measurement Tools." I thought this
discussion would like to hear what my panel had to
say about this question. This panel included very
experienced media professionals such Tom Hespos from
Mezzina Brown and Partners, Brad Aaronson from
iFrontier, Lynn Bolger from FastBridge (div. of
Initiative Media), Brian Monahan from Inrhythm
Marketing, and Jason Heller from Mass-Transit. I
asked the panelists "is the banner dead?" and the
answer everyone gave was "NO" (emphatically no) for
many reasons. A sample of the reasons given: 1)
They will continue to be an important ad units as
part of a mix of ad units. 2) Banners will continue
to be important component of sponsorship programs.
3) Banner effectiveness will change (increase) if
used in new ways, such as served to users via the
surround session concept. 4) Since there is so much
banner inventory, they will continue to be used
for CPC deals.

I disagree that we have to reinvent the banner or
that the industry is giving up too easily. I think
there are many sites that have addressed the issues
for years and have continued to innovate new ways to
address the banner issues that are constantly put
under the microscope. I give a lot of credit to
sites like MarketWatch, iVillage, and CNET for
leading the innovation. I believe we are starting
to see better banner creative with the new rich media
tools and the good sites are studying what works to
get the best results.

One of the most important issues that is not often
discussed is how media companies design their sites.
Most sales professionals/executives I speak with have
sites designed without their input. I continue to ask
"how many site designers have ever sold an ad, went
into a sales meeting with clients/agencies?" From my
small and unscientific survey, the answer is none and
the fact is most designers come out of editorial,
technical, graphics fields....which is not bad, nor my
complaint. But if site designers and UI specialists
continue to do their work without the understanding
what the media issues are or what the media buying
community is concerned about, we will continue to aim
the gun at the banner and not at the site. So lets
start looking at UI issues regarding advertising space,
lets start to really understand the ad-edit space and
interactions. This is not a linear medium such as
broadcast or print where clear demarcations can be made
to separate the editorial content from the ad content
(and where users are now well-trained to understand and
perceive the differences). Lets look at what makes
sense to generate the most revenue per page, by
understanding how many ad units per page makes sense,
where the ad units should be placed relative to
editorial content, what types of ads should go on what
type of page, and the impact of technology to deliver
the ads.


Leslie D. Laredo, President
The Laredo Group, Inc.
4 Wildwood Avenue
Newton, MA 02460
(617)559-0200 ext. 99
email: leslie_at_laredogroup.com
www.laredogroup.com
Internet Advertising Training, Research & Consulting



Received on Fri Dec 14 2001 - 16:25:45 CST