ONLINE-ADS>> Mode-specific responses to ads

Peter Bull. (peterb_at_dvp.com.au)
Thu, 1 May 1997 08:50:48 +1000

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I came across, secondhand, what I think was an anecdotal observation from
Jared Spool (jspool_at_uie.com) of User Interface Engineering (interesting
firm - check them out www.uie.com), that web users' responses to banner ads
vary according to the user's current purpose. I take this to mean that an
eyecatching piece of banner graphics might elicit a positive response if
the user was in wander mode, but that the same ad would be totally ignored
if the user had a definite purpose behind the web activity, like searching
for a specific piece of information.

Jared's group had observed users even blocking the visually insistent
banner ads from their eyes by putting their hand over part of the screen,
to better concentrate on reading some text. Wow! This makes sense,
because the versatility of this medium means that there is nothing like the
homogeneity of user mode that there would be for other media like TV or
radio. It also means that there can be no "most effective" form for any
given banner ad, because so much depends on the content context, and on the
user mode at the time.

I think there is definitely a greater need to adjust dynamically the form
and presentation of ad messages than with any other medium. For instance,
it may be that a leisure-oriented user will respond to an eyecatching ad in
a conventional banner form, but that same user could resent the visual
distraction embedded in a screen full of technical specs - however, if the
same message were to be presented in a form more visually congruous with
technical specs, perhaps presented interstitially so that it appeared less
obtrusively during the natural "attention-breaks" between different
technical page loads, then it may achieve the desired result.

Of course, that ignores the incredible difficulty of trying to determine
the context and user mode of globally spread anonymous users.

Peter Bull
Communications Design
DVP
peterb_at_dvp.com.au

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