The Place of Banner-Ads

Written June 18. 1999, at 01:00 GMT.

This article on banner-ads in New York Times tries (unsucessfully) to find the reason why banner-ads don't work

I disagree with those who believe squeezing computer games and registrations into the banner-space will save the online ad-industry. Neither will changing my cursor into a stupid animated mascot.

The web is not TV, and banner-ads can never follow the same rules as TV advertisements. (Newspaper ads are a much better simile) Banner-ads can be either used to give the user some useful information/content or it can simply display the logo and slogan of the advertizer. Both cases result in strengthened brand and possibly a positive image in the eyes of the user. Banner-ads will probably never go further than that.

Web users are very goal-motivated. Therefore it'll always be hard to get them to interrupt their current task to sign up for some silly competition or to buy stuff.

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