Paper ads are dwindling away, so marketers are finding new ways to reach consumers. The internet is the only growing market for advertising in this high tech world. EMarketer said in November that U.S. online ad spending would reach $23.6 billion in 2008 and $25.7 billion this year.
How do you reach people when they have been brainwashed to ignore banners? For many years it has been thought by advertisers that they have to have flashy, annoying banners to get attention. "Studies show we ignore banner ads," said Jose Castillo, a new media consultant in Johnson City, Tenn. "Making them bigger and more intrusive won't work. We will tune those out as well."
Advertisers won’t stop trying though. A new kind of banner is one that takes up the entire screen. It’s the “Make the Logo Bigger” of the banner world. “The In your face” banner that can’t be ignored until the XXL is selected at the top. These banners allow people to interact by playing games, watching video trailers and taking online polls.
Google and other search firms say that people don’t mind banners as long as they pertain to what they are searching for. So if someone is looking for restaurants then they wouldn’t mind seeing a banner of the newest restaurant in their area.
There are 3 new types of advertising banners that people can expect to start seeing. They are the “fixed panel”, which disguises itself as being part of the page but scrolls up and down as the user does; the “XXL box, “ in which users can turn pages within the ad; and the “pushdown”, which opens to display a larger ad. These large format ads could very well work at getting the attention of consumers.
Retailers higher marketers for insane amounts of money and they want a return on their investment. A few high traffic sites such as People.com and CCNMoney.com have used these ads and they prove to work. Advertising is never going away; it’s just changing mediums and moving with the times.
