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When Will We Finally Abolish the Banner Ad?
By dave_pasternack | May 6, 2008
Sean X Cummings, of Ask.com, writes a witty, well-reasoned article on how ad agencies consistently fall down when designing those horribly ubiquitous banner ads we see almost everywhere on the Web. According to Cummings, just about everything is wrong with ad banners, from their conception to final delivery. Unfortunately, he offers no real corrective remedy, in fact, some of his suggestions (especially that they always be animated) will simply add more visual clutter to a medium which feels more like a tawdry strip mall than the Library of Alexandria. Nobody notices them, nobody clicks them, and the reasons for this are quite obvious: human beings are very good at screening out irrelevant messaging — it’s a skill we’ve learned from millions of years of hunting and gathering — and this has been borne out by numerous eye-tracking studies proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that people almost never click on images. As a species we’re hard-wired to separate the wheat from the dross, banners are a throwback that deserve to be buried forthwith.
Topics: Online Ad Industry Foolishness |
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