Images need Images

Brad Waller at ReveNews is exited about brands bringing banners back and points to an interesting article by David Kesmodel at the Wall Street Journal about the return of brand marketers to the web. First of all: neither banners nor brand marketers have disappeared from the web ever. Spending on display ads not only nearly equals those on search ads today but has equalled or exceeded them during the last years as well.

Images need images. That’s why textual classified ads, like search engines offer them, can’t replace display ads. And that’s why Google tries to replace text ads with banners on its affiliate sites as well. The news is not the return of the banner. The news is the extension of online advertising activities. And that’s not really news either, as major brands invest more money online since 2003/2004 when Rich Media formats became common.

The core reason why advertisers spend more money for online advertising today is supposed to be its effectiveness and efficiency:

“Getting a Web site visitor to interact with an ad for 10 seconds can be more effective - and less expensive - than a 30-second television commercial,” said Mitch Lowe, chief executive of San Francisco-based Jumpstart Automotive Media.

And attention should be paid to the cardinal replacement of goals:

“We’re not as much about click-throughs,” said John Vail, director of the interactive marketing group for Pepsi-Cola North America. … “It’s all about getting incremental exposure,” Mr. Vail said. “We basically use online as an overall extension of our communication. Consumers are spending nearly 20% of their time online, so we’re going where the consumers are.“

Last but not least: There’s more contextual advertising beyond search engines as it was 2 years ago. Monitoring technologies have improved and make it easier to track what’s happening offline while advertising online. Creative Rich Media banners, like those presented at the BannerBlog, are getting more momentum: they are not as intrusive as some years ago but they are innovative and clever like the one Nike currently uses.