UKNM: Banners ads, again

[Robb Masters]

(Silly bit first, then a serious issue. Please bear with me.)


A bit late for the discussion on good banner ads, I know, but 

my current "favourite" has to be:



http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net/viewad/9370-totp_468x60.gif


"Javis"? Who he? Top of the Pops obviously know their stuff.

I'd just assumed they'd miss spelt "Jarvis", but I guess 

they're just more up to date with the music scene than I

thought, and are touting a brand new pop sensation that we 

haven't heard of yet. Or maybe not. ;-)


Seriously, though. I did like that recent ad that emulated

a Mac error message with the line "An error has occurred... 

in your life" (maybe it just seemed apt). Mind you, I never

clicked on it so I don't know who it was for...


This raised an issue for me, though. Looking at it *very* 

simplistically, there are two possible benefits from banner 

ads:

1) Click-throughs (i.e. site visits)

2) Product / brand awareness


Typical click-through rates seem to be about 2%. So the vast

majority of the audience for your banner ad just *see* it.

This viewing of (but not interacting with) an banner ad seems

(again very simplistically) most closely related to traditional 

forms of advertising.


In order to create a sense of intrigue which should maximise 

benefit 1, whoever created the "Mac error" ad seems to have 

been happy to sacrifice all of benefit 2 (as no-one simply 

viewing it would know who it was for).


I've obviously got no idea how many click-throughs they got, 

but even if they doubled the typical click-through rate from

the typical 2% to 4%, that still 96% of viewers who the ad

was wasted on.


So my issue is how many "eyeballs" is a click-through worth? 

In the example above, would an extra 2 click-throughs per 100 

users (and remember I've just made up the 4% figure) be worth 

the effective loss of 96 "eyeballs" (who would see the ad but 

be able to infer nothing from it)?


And please, nobody say "42".


Regards,


Robb

-- 

Robb Masters

rmastersredkite [dot] com

Project Manager

Red Kite New Media   http://www.redkite.com/