The story of display advertising is close to my heart. I think I have shared some bits on this before here at WAT, but a decade back all I really wanted to do was make a banner, put it up on my own website and get people to click it. For me a site wasn’t complete till it didn’t have a banner.
So it is with pity that I see the state of a banner ad on the web today, totally ignored and completely pointless. Add this to some of the other aspects that I have been observing and it is only evident (like to many others like me) that display campaigns seem on a suicidal run as a community. Although, I wouldn’t say something as drastic as display advertising on the web is dead, the day wouldn’t be very far that I did.
What did I see?
What I saw is something to do with text links more than display banners. In fact, it has got to do with seeing lesser text links and even lesser ones that make us click on them that got me thinking. The Google story unfolds:
Youtube is getting movie rentals to its fold. Youtube is also taking some interesting measures to stop being the high maintenance girl in the Google group. To me it shows that they’re looking at beyond ads, the text links that crop up when you watch some really popular videos are not working well enough. Look at their other initiatives -Android, Android App Market, Chrome OS, Google Wave, and so on. They all suggest that Google has figured online ads are nearing a dead end. Search becoming irrelevant through social systems is another worry that adds to this thought. Drastic statement but unlike 2012 prophecy, this one seems a lot more real.
The Problem of Tradition
Another sucker punch to online advertising as we know it is actually a cancer within. That of not adapting to changing times and a totally different media.
Ads on the web don’t work. At least not like they do on television. On TV there’s no other way to advertise and so is the case with print. Print obviously has one small advantage that you can cut coupons and use the ads. However craigslist killed it long back in the US and coupons is the only way advertising on traditional media corelates directly to commerce. Otherwise ads on other media are on the premise of information/eyeballs.
Look at Digital Media
Digital is an all encompassing medium. It is informative and information driving. It is branding based, brand position based. It is eyeballs and clicks. More importantly it is also commerce enabling. You can drive people through an entire process – to the last mile as they say, through an online marketing campaign unlike other media. So when you see ads that are just differently designed replica of the old idea of advertising, you know it won’t work.
That’s why Google has begun stepping out and into the app eco system. Everyone else though is not Google, and clearly advertising as a concept is not going anywhere, because it works on other media as we have seen. We just need to figure out how we’re going to advertise on digital media, the right way to do it.
I don’t have the exact answer, and I am still hunting, however these are some of the direction in which my thought has panned out.
In my opinion, as something I have stated before banners need to change. Forbes’ echoed the thought recently as well, and to their credit echoed it better. The way the web functions these days, it is going to get harder to take someone out of a website they’re already in. People just don’t want to leave or be lured from where they are. Facebook is a case in point here.
And banners are the enemy here or at least the way they look or in what they want someone to do. This needs to change if display ads are to work. You need to add value to what the visitor to the publisher’s site is already experiencing. It calls for not just copy writing or designing skills but also development. Put the technology back in to the banner.
It is time for banners to stop being a stunted replica of a television ad. If you want something similar make a video on Youtube and set it on viral fire, better and cheaper.
Things to remember:
- Be creative, use technology
- Add value, share information, get data while you give data
- Put in interaction before the click and traffic
- Use social media to catch up and sell later
And so will live strong the mighty name of online and display advertising in an ever social media. Get conversational with your banners.
