Another article by Dan Schaffer from CNET that is relevant to THW.
builder.com 
Web advertising woes
(9/8/97) by Dan Schaffer
I don't know if the recent attempt by Talk City to publish audio ads that contain stories running as long as 4 minutes is the answer, but it's clear that we need to start busting out of the mold regarding Web advertising.
Banner ads are carryovers from print. Audio ads are going to be radio/TV soundalikes. But the Web is a truly new medium, and it calls for new approaches to everything, including the dreaded but necessary presence of paid advertisements.
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The Web calls for new approaches to everything, including ads. We must begin experimenting with Web advertising to take fuller advantage of this new medium's primary distinguishing characteristics: interactivity, multimedia, and personalization. Work in this field is already beginning, but for reasons that are unclear to me, pushing the online advertising envelope has been pretty minimal and not terribly successful so far.
It's easy to place an appropriate ad banner on the next page the user views, based on information (whether they are using a Mac or PC, Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer) available from their browser. But personalization of ad content based on the user's characteristics is being used only by relatively sophisticated advertisers.
Unfortunately, it's usually pretty much invisible to the visitor. I say "unfortunately" because at this early stage, it's often useful to make visitors feel like they are participating in something exciting and experimental. Down the road, sublimating that knowledge might well be appropriate.
But as online advertising struggles to reach its potential, we must move far beyond mere personalization. And as we do, we're going to challenge some long-standing taboos and expectations.
For example, Web users can expect to see advertisements that do not clearly present themselves as such but that still generate ad revenue for their publishers. Movie producers routinely accept substantial payoffs from companies for so-called product placements. When you see the handsome hero quaffing a bottle of brew on the silver screen, it's no accident that you recognize the label.
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Time-based ads that appear during certain hours of certain days might prove compelling.
Similarly, Web builders are trying to create ads that engage visitors in some sort of dialog or other interaction. It might be intriguing, for example, to experiment with ads that promise visitors who click them a chance to talk to a star via real-time videoconferencing. Time-based ads that appear during certain hours of certain days because their offers are valid during those times only--and which carry with them an attendant urgency--might prove compelling.
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Web users can expect to see advertisements that do not clearly present themselves as such. Beyond such interesting techniques for enticing visitors to click business-generating links, advertisers are also looking for entirely new ways to promote products. For example, longer-term relationships (in the form of sponsorships and strategic alliances) between advertisers and content producers are already challenging the notion of advertisements that are carefully restricted to certain areas of a site.
In these partnerships, cobranding, comarketing, and other aspects of the deal are at least as important as what happens in the banner area of the browser display.
One relatively new company, Narrative Communications, is touting a product called Enliven that lets ad agencies use familiar tools to create more interesting ads. Although Enliven product demos focus largely on banners, the underlying tools are capable of much more variety, which bodes well for the company and for the development of ads that transcend the old media.
Today, much of the interesting experimentation in Web advertising is happening in the back alleys of X-rated sites; that's because they're making sufficient profits to fund new ideas. But in the increasingly high-noise environment of Web content, it's essential for mainstream sites and advertisers to adapt their advertising approaches to the power and uniqueness of our new medium.
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Much of the interesting leading-edge technology experimentation is being carried out in the back alleys of X-rated sites.
Regardless of how you feel about advertising on your site and on the Web in general, it's not going away. And it doesn't have to be a bad thing. After all, in the world of TV and movie technology, it's common for pioneering to take place in the advertising arena. Once producers discover what works, they translate those techniques into programming. Let's hope Web developers, too, can learn something from the advertising that supports them.
Dan Shafer is executive technical producer and editor at large for CNET's BUILDER.COM. |
