Does Anybody Pay Attention To Banner Ads

That is the billion dollar question being asked by ad executives everywhere according to a report by Ad Age. They are finally realizing that no one pays attention to online banner ads. Banner ads offer web publishers a means to monetize their traffic but the report questions how long it can last. Advertisers will realize that they are not getting the bang for their buck as they hoped and will find alternative ways to achieve their goals than banner ads. TechDirt suggests that Advertising Is Content and Content Is Advertising and offers the following recommendations for "brand" marketers who are starting to worry about the effectiveness of banner ads.

1. The captive audience is dead. There is no captive audience online. Everyone surfing the web has billions of choices on what they can be viewing, and they don't want to be viewing intrusive and annoying ads. They'll either ignore them, block them or go elsewhere.
2. Advertising is content. You can't think of ads as separate things any more. Without a captive audience, there's no such thing as "advertising" any more. It's just content. And it needs to be good/interesting/relevant content if you want to get anyone to pay attention to it.
3. Content is advertising. Might sound like a repeat of the point above, and in some ways it is -- but it's highlighting the flip side. Any content is advertising. It's advertising something. Techdirt content "advertises" our business even if you don't realize it. Every bit of content advertises something, whether on purpose or not.
4. Content needs to be useful/engaging/interesting. This simply ties all of that together. If you want anyone to pay attention to your content (which is advertising something, whether on purpose or not) it needs to be compelling and engaging.