This was a sensible and sufficient way to deal with the initial dilemma of slow and inefficient modems. Like roadside billboards along the information superhighway, these ads are static and monotonous as well as easily overlooked. Annoying and intrusive, banner ads are too insignificant in size and repetitious in form to have significant impact upon consumers.
Presently, banners are the most predominant type of online ads, accounting for 53% of all online advertising. With such a space efficient, cost efficient and memory efficient advertising method, coupled with the great size of the potential audience, the results could be quite tremendous. For the week ending September 5, 1999, First USA/Microsoft had the most viewed banner ad, reaching an audience of 1,771,589. That same week, Microsoft Corp. had 145,187,179 banner ads viewed, reaching an audience of 13,277,940. Although these statistics imply an impressive audience, they reflect nothing in terms of actual perception by W users. That is to say, they offer no information on whether or not people actually looked at or contemplated the ads. In the online advertising world, frequency is valueless and immaterial. In fact, statistics show that actual activity involving banner ads is virtually nonexistent. According to the sixth annual Interactive Media Study conducted by Market Facts TeleNation, only 9.1% of Web users said they look at banners "very often" or "often." Furthermore, 51.1% of Web users look at banners only "sometimes" and an overwhelming 48.5% claim they "never" look at banners. This means that out of Microsoft's audience of 1,771,589, at least 859,220 never even saw the ad at all. To make matters worse, the numbers of those looking at banner ads are steadily declining. The "very often" and "often" score of 9.1% dropped from 16.2% last year, and the "never" group of 48.5% increased from last year's 38.7%.
The distressful click rates are an even more serious indicator of banner ad failure. Out of the very small number of Web users who notice banner ads, an even smaller number actually click on them. According to Market Facts TeleNation, 48.5% of those surveyed said they "never" click on banners's, and 48.2% said they only "sometimes" click. A mere 0.3% responded that they click on banners "very often," and 2.7% said they clicked "often." On the Web, wear-out is almost immediate and the decrease in click-through's is perceptible in a number of days. These statistics illustrate the degenerating attitudes of Web users toward banner ads.
Does this mean banner ads don't work?
I decided to conduct a focus group including 10 participants, all of whom were college
students at the University of Texas at Austin. (A biased sample, sure, but it was the best I could do!) These participants have access to the Internet, and use it for entertainment purposes at least once per week. They have shopped online at least two times within the last four months of the focus group. Another major qualifier was a positive response to a question asking whether or not they are familiar with banner ads. Although all the participants general had a negative attitude toward banner ads and strongly believed that they were ineffective, sighting absolutely no click throughs and conscious efforts to ignore them, my team and I realized that they were mistaken. At one point during the focus group, the participants began talking amongst each other about banner ads that they had seen recently. This included describing the banner ads in extreme detail, and naming the ad's sponsor. Although they did not click on the ads, they were aware of their presence. The conclusion made by my team, was that although banner ads are ineffective links to Websites, they are extremely effective as billboards.
Summary and Conclusions
The World Wide Web is intrinsically unlike any other form of media. It combines the ability of traditional mass media to disperse a message to a wide audience with some of the interpersonal communication possibilities, collecting individualized information and providing the opportunity for consumer/advertiser interaction. It is essential for advertisers to acknowledge and exploit the unique intercommunication powers of the Web to improve online advertising. The interactivity of the Web provides rare and significant opportunities for creating ads with high entertainment value that can improve a company's image and build strong brand preference. Advertisers who merely haphazardly implement conventional advertising techniques to this unique medium have been, and will continue to be, unsuccessful.
To briefly hold Web users' attentions is not enough. Advertisers must retain and reward users' attention in order to get the right kind of exposures. Advertisers have to rethink the traditional approach to advertising in order to succeed online. Because Web users expose themselves to ads rather than passively being exposed to them, selectivity and user control of the communication process is high. Thus advertisers must aggressively compete with each other for attention. The basic underlying approach is that if the advertiser does not provide value for the customer, the advertiser will find it very difficult to attract and retain an audience. Successful online advertising depends upon interactive relationships between users and advertisers. Thus advertisers must establish new advertising methods and models, which utilize the distinct properties of the Web. Relationships, not content, are the key to online advertising success.
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