Banner advertising can be controversial. We have long been told that banners are a thing of the past. Well luckily there is plenty to see wherever you go on the net. It would be a boring place without them.
What are they doing to the banners?
From time to time we’ve been told that the traditional pictorial banners are gone, that no one clicks on them anymore, that people view them as blatant “hype” to steal money. We’re told that by far the best ads are the wolves in sheep’s clothing, the ads that are cleverly disguised to look like a text or drop-down box, and not like an ad at all. The story is that everyone who is anybody is producing these for the tone and making an absolute fortune using them in their advertising.
Well surprise, it doesn’t take long to recognize these billboards for what they are. This is not to say that they are not very effective if used in the right place, but that is not everywhere.
I recently read an article about using banners as in-text ads and the great click-through rates they bring. These were “banners” only in the sense of being gifs or jpegs. They were not pictorial in any way. They were designed to fit perfectly on a page of text, with a couple of lines of text and a link in them. It was advertising trying not to look like advertising. With respect, calling these “banners” is just playing games. Because they look exactly like text, they get the click-through rate of any piece of text on a page. Comparing your results to pictorial banners is like comparing oranges to apples.
Why do illustrated posters top the list?
There are two factors that the anti-traditional banners argument fails to take into account:
First of all, the pictorial banner is great for promoting the advertiser’s own brand. No word banner can come close to evoking whatever vibe the advertiser desires, let alone making a unique statement about who the advertiser is. If you doubt me, take a quick look at some of the beautiful art created for casinos – Ambiance Per Gallon. Would a two line text ad do the job too?
Secondly, there are people on the net, and quite a few, who are actually looking for things, dare I say it, even looking to spend money. For these people, the right chart can be nothing short of a godsend. Would a text banner grab attention and jog your memory as well as a graphic? Would it evoke that “Oh, those are the people I’m looking for!” answer? I bet not!
Here’s another thing: does the text banner give you any concept of the quality of the business behind it? Hardly!
The fact is that, in principle, online advertising is not that different from advertising in the rest of the world, as some of the truly successful internet marketing gurus have pointed out. Therefore, it is logical that the same precepts of good publicity continue to apply. It all comes down to branding: creating a presence that the customer can instantly recognise. When all is said and done, the first step in that process is often visual.
Making the most of banners
With Internet advertising, we have in our hands the most brilliant promotional medium that exists, both in terms of quantity and quality: something very special happens to images and colors when they are displayed on the screen with the light behind them. . We need to make the most of that.
For those who persist in derisively talking about “eye candy”, let them eat dry crackers. I’m saying they’re missing out on a whole broad arena of sensory buyer appeal. Most of us respond instantly in real life to “the way things look.” There may be some fatally wounded for whom the printed page is everything, but don’t count on them making up the bulk of the hordes you expect to have on the road to your website.
Fortunately, as internet technology advances, we can make the most of images, and within reason, we need to do just that. This is a world just as competitive as the “real” one, maybe more so. The need is for very high quality graphic and conceptual design in all areas of internet marketing and advertising.
A business can capitalize on this opportunity primarily on its own website and emails, and secondarily on cyberspace billboards, with the quality of its banner advertising. People may not click on banners every time they see them, nor do they follow every ad that catches their eye in a magazine or on TV. But if the ad is visual and memorable, if it creates the right “feel,” and if the exposure is repeated and reinforced, when it’s time to buy, they’ll know exactly who and what they’re looking for.
Will a two-line text ad or a dropdown box do it for you?