Thursday
Oct152009
R.I.P. The Static Banner Ad (1995-2009)
Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 10:58PM
Yesterday, I mentioned that AdBean’s central goal is to provide a service that allows the display advertising industry to work more efficiently. In my opinion, the first thing that needs to happen to get there is we need to put the static banner ad to rest. Maybe a eulogy is in order:
"We are gathered here to remember a web of serifed fonts, frames and blinking text. In those early days, we recall the new online medium taking shape at the expense of TV and print. We remember advertisers learning the rules of the new channel, and we watched the steady migration of eyeballs to the desk chair from the couch, to the mouse from the remote control.
We watched a new medium take shape at the direct expense of television and print. Technology being what is was at the time and the Internet a new medium, offline models were simply applied online. Inspired by cliches about an "information superhighway", the first online advertisers put their faith in little models of billboards and print ads. Thus was the banner ad born.
So colorful and bold these ads once appeared in their youth, in a world that still remembered a monochrome computer screen. So seemingly filled with the future were these static prisons of brand that we couldn't imagine a digital campaign without them.
But static banner ads could never survive today's interactive online world. Inflexible and fixed in a churning sea of dynamic content and spontaneously generated socializing, static banner ads simply grew out of date.
Today's Web 2.0 rules take edges and make them into centers, make friends into brands and vice versa. All static banner ads can do is look on, their brands trapped by last quarter's creative, last month's media buy and last week's clickstreams.
Today's social media-driven realities call for nothing less than a new standard in display advertising. No more "fire-and-forget" spends. Instead: dynamic, flexible creative for always-on-target campaigns. Dynamic interactivity. Real-time optimizations. Easy retargeting and remarketing campaigns. Simplified and universal campaign tracking. Self-service advertising. These are the tools needed for message optimization and better advertising performance.
And so we bid farewell to the static banner ad. We'll always remember your tiny conversion rate, your inflexibility, your hilarious habit of showing up where you didn't belong. Rest in peace."
"We are gathered here to remember a web of serifed fonts, frames and blinking text. In those early days, we recall the new online medium taking shape at the expense of TV and print. We remember advertisers learning the rules of the new channel, and we watched the steady migration of eyeballs to the desk chair from the couch, to the mouse from the remote control.
We watched a new medium take shape at the direct expense of television and print. Technology being what is was at the time and the Internet a new medium, offline models were simply applied online. Inspired by cliches about an "information superhighway", the first online advertisers put their faith in little models of billboards and print ads. Thus was the banner ad born.
So colorful and bold these ads once appeared in their youth, in a world that still remembered a monochrome computer screen. So seemingly filled with the future were these static prisons of brand that we couldn't imagine a digital campaign without them.
But static banner ads could never survive today's interactive online world. Inflexible and fixed in a churning sea of dynamic content and spontaneously generated socializing, static banner ads simply grew out of date.
Today's Web 2.0 rules take edges and make them into centers, make friends into brands and vice versa. All static banner ads can do is look on, their brands trapped by last quarter's creative, last month's media buy and last week's clickstreams.
Today's social media-driven realities call for nothing less than a new standard in display advertising. No more "fire-and-forget" spends. Instead: dynamic, flexible creative for always-on-target campaigns. Dynamic interactivity. Real-time optimizations. Easy retargeting and remarketing campaigns. Simplified and universal campaign tracking. Self-service advertising. These are the tools needed for message optimization and better advertising performance.
And so we bid farewell to the static banner ad. We'll always remember your tiny conversion rate, your inflexibility, your hilarious habit of showing up where you didn't belong. Rest in peace."
Reader Comments (1)
And yet, so many of us still aren't ready to leave it be, mainly because we don't know how or don't have access to doing anything else. It's a shame, but in a way they're better than being on a site like MSNBC and accidentally scrolling over something that suddenly pops up and seemingly won't go away.