MSNBC.com has launched a new site design in a 'single-page' format on which it hopes to be able to sell large, customizable ads. There will be as many as 30 different ad combinations possible with the new design. Banner ads, though, are not among them. Is MSNBC's rejection the final nail in the coffin of banner ads? Are they, in other words, dead?
Certainly there is reason to wish them to be: for all their ubiquity consumers have trained their eyeballs to ignore them - a fact that even Neal Mohan, vice president of product management of Google, has noted. It may be that other ad formats are becoming more popular with consumers - and are experiencing higher rates of engagement. But, according to marketing experts contacted by MarketingVox in an informal survey, the banner ad is not dead. Rather, it is merely undergoing an evolution.
MSNBC Still a Fan
First of all, says Larry Weintraub, CEO, Fanscape, MSNBC hasn’t gotten rid of all banner advertising - it's simply reduced the amount of banner advertising and re-designed their site to make it more visually appealing. "The banner ads are still there. Even now, there's a Cadillac banner ad in the middle of the page and an additional one below the fold. The ads are expandable and allow for additional exploration without being taken away from MSNBC.com," he says.
The lesson to draw, he says, is that banner ads and other graphic-based ads won’t soon go away, but they should become more appealing by featuring content that pertains to readers’ needs based upon where they live and what other websites they’ve recently visited.
Always Changing
Lorrie Thomas, CEO of Web Marketing Therapy, agrees banner ads are merely getting a facelift to address the burnout of their current format. "I was on the founding team at ValueClick when 468×60 banner ads were hot, over the years I have watched the evolution and revolution, selling and buying ads," she says. Banner ads have gone through their own rebranding before and the new ad size is more of a revenue play than anything else. "The large format ads give salespeople new ad units to sell, which prompts excitement and reason to engage advertisers and advertisers have a new option to test - media buyers always need new options to acquire customers and boost traffic."
A better way to think of the issue is this, says McGarrah Jessee digital media director, Brendan Starr: "Banner ads aren’t going extinct, but the ways they are used, bought, and served are. Sites who want to offer unique branding experiences will turn to large-format ads because you can do more with them. They offer a more rich experience that doesn’t require a user to leave the site. But not every page can have an obtrusive large-format ad on it."
Stay Tuned for Part 2: If Not Banner, Then What?
