Text Banner Standards: Isn't it about time?

From: Andy Bourland <andy_at_clickz.com>
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 10:49:56 -0600 (CST)

NOTE: I am cross-posting this on both O-A and IADL to get
the broadest reach for consensus on this issue...

****


I was having a conversation earlier today with Neil Monnens
of 2Can Media. He raised an excellent point: "If email is
the killer app for online marketers, than why aren't there
standards for online text ads?" He's been trying to put
together a media plan and has to come up with a unique ad
for each venue.

Let's look at the alternatives, just among the leading
online advertising/marketing lists:

CLICKZ:
60 characters per line. Up to 10 lines.

ICONOCAST:
60 characters per line. Up to 8 lines.

The Online Advertising Discussion List (O-A):
70 characters per line. Up to 3 lines of text

The Internet Advertising Discussion List (IADL):
75 characters per line. Up to 25 lines of text

Industry Standard:
72 characters per line. Up to 7 lines of text


There are others I'm overlooking. But the problem is clear
from just these samples: We're making life difficult for our
potential sponsors. Let's make it easy for them!

I would propose that the five of us listed above -- and
let's add in John Audette's list, WilsonWeb and Larry
Chase -- collectively agree upon a standard. With the
influence our various publications have within the industry,
perhaps we could get a standard going without a single IAB
meeting or committee being set up!

My proposal would be as follows:

60 characters wide shows up cleanly, consistently no matter
what email browsers or settings you throw at it. Anytime you
start straying past 65 characters wide, you wander into the
area where your clients' ad risk getting chopped.

I think we need to agree upon a few options in terms of
number of lines:

4 lines <small>
7 lines <medium>
12 lines <large>

Or perhaps we should use Starbucks phraseology: Tall,
Grande, Venti...;-)

And we agree that there is a border above and below the ad,
like ICONOCAST's:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FLAG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

or ClickZ's

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> S P O T L I G H T <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

So that's THREE elements we need to work out here: Width,
Standard number of lines, and Border.

This is NOT rocket science.

Can we build a consensus here so that selling and creating
text banners can be a simpler process?

Let's wrestle through this issue right here, right now, and
show the industry how it's done.

Andy

 ------------------------------------------
 Andrew Bourland
 Publisher
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Received on Fri Jan 15 1999 - 14:15:00 CST