17 July 2012

Banner Ads = Happy Meal Toys…???

There’s a fellow at Forbes who says that banner advertising is now akin to Happy Meal Toys:

imageThe New Price Of A Web Ad: Free?
By Jeff Bercovici
… To be clear, Microsoft wouldn’t really be “giving away” these ads, just turning them into a value-added offering whose price would be woven into the price of the premium ads it wants to push. In effect, a cheap banner ad becomes the crummy plastic toy in the Happy Meal.

I respectfully disagree.  Happy Meal Toys are GREAT. 

I’m not suggesting that you should be taking your grandchildren to McDonald’s – but if you have any or happen to be tending kiddies for whatever reason, you know what powerful magnets Happy Meal Toys are.  For better or worse, they rank as one of the smartest and most effective advertising/marketing/promotional gimmicks in the history of civilization.

Banner Ads?  Not so much.  Almost not at all:

Click this ad. 0.051% do.
… a tiny fraction of people ever click on an ad. In fact, 99% of stable cookies examined never click on an ad … optimization of campaigns to achieve higher CTR may in fact be reducing brand ROI.

Digital Distractions
Advertisers are getting wise to the drawbacks of marketing in the digital nest.

Digital Distractions II
I wasn’t planning on doing a Digital Distractions II – but there are so many digital distractions that it’s difficult to be distracted.

From The Ad Contrarian:

Dhttp://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRt1O-32l17sfosgFFoLeTfok6LeUOd9o0U8SI4oIZg0C4gqXBzPgisplay's Dismal Dysfunction

Tongue-In-Cheek Truth: The “value-added” isn’t the toy, but the meal.