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The concept of banner ads was a natural follow-on to television advertising -- put your message in front of many people, who never asked to see it, and maybe enough of them will pay attention to give a boost to your business.
Like television advertising, banner ads are an unavoidable nuisance. Yes, the advertiser can target particular messages to particular audiences -- by Web site, by particular Web page, or even based on the visitor's actions (like what they looked for at a search engine). But the banner ad takes up screen space -- that otherwise could contain useful information -- slows the loading of pages, and seeks to divert the visitor's attention from the main purpose of the page.
Unlike television advertising, banner ads invite you to go away. The Web site displaying the ad has gone to considerable trouble to attract this audience, and now the banner ad tries to get them to go somewhere else. (This would be analogous to ads on television prompting you to change channels now.) Some sites are set up so clicking on a banner ad opens a separate Web browser window or a little java window. But in any case, it is a diversion, intended to lead the visitor down a new path to additional information and different experiences.
Users eventually learn to tune out banner ads, as evidenced by the fact that despite ever more flashy, high tech, dancing and prancing versions, they generate fewer and fewer click throughs.
Web site owners lose traffic when people do click through, and lose advertising revenue when they don't. In any case, they need to invest in more powerful technology and faster Internet connections in order to effectively display ever fancier banner ads and still provide the user with reasonable response time.
And advertisers are disappointed by the results -- too few people are paying attention to the messages.
So it's no wonder that banner ads are dying. The miracle is that they have persisted so long.
But the underlying capability of the Internet to inform and entertain and link people to people continues to be strong, opening myriad creative ways to present useful information and marketing messages.
One might say that the worst problem with banner ads was the fact that they worked too well to begin with -- diverting creative marketing and advertising people down that deadend path, when they could and should have been coming up new approaches that consumers would welcome and enjoy.
What, for example? Try javapuzzlecards. They recently launced their beta site at www.javapuzzlecards.com Advertising isn't its main purpose, but it could easily be used that way by creative marketers.
At this site, you can turn any digital image into an online jigsaw puzzle. You can easily add text to the image, so you have to put the pieces together (by clicking and dragging) to read the message.
People can create puzzles based on photos they've taken and send email to friends -- like with e-cards. The email has the URL where you see the puzzle pieces and assemble them. You could also make links to the URLs for particular puzzles from any Web page. For instance, a family page with photos could have links to puzzles based on some of those photos.
And companies can "rent" their own branded space on the javapuzzlecard site. Then they could brand their puzzle creation area and include advertising messages, if they like. And when people create their own puzzles there, the email messages they send could be branded and include messages. And the puzzle asembly area could be branded and include messages and links. These companies also could create their own puzzles with their own images and include associated links in messages they send out over their opt-in email lists. Assembling such puzzles is fun, and as you do so you naturally pay attention to the associated words, as clues to how to put them together, and the more pieces you put together the clearer the message becomes -- perhaps including a surprise twist of language or a joke. In this context, you are far more likely to remember the message, than if you just saw it in a banner ad.
For instance, you could promote sales of books with puzzles based on book covers, promote movies with puzzles based on posters, promote music CDs with puzzles based on the packaging, promote children's cartoons with puzzles based on cartoon characters and scenes, and promote video games with puzzles based on characters and screen shots.
Give it a try. Go to www.javapuzzlecards.com. Create puzzles using images and messages from your best print ads, email them to your colleagues, and get their ideas on how you might use this approach. Let your imagination run wild. Start taking advantage of the true power of the Internet.
See related article, How businesses can capitalize
on Java Puzzle Cards
See edited transcript of chat session about
Java Puzzle Cards
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