If the story is the one that sells how come everybody wants banners?
If the story is the one that sells, how come everyone is still so focused on banners. Could you forget the banners and focus on stories? I urge you to try. Try to create relevant, meaningful and original content and bring your audience home, or better said, bring relevant traffic on your home page.
To work in an agency means everyday will be different and interesting, and almost like in journalism, non-repeatable. Nevertheless, it can also be very tiresome. You want the best for your client, but sometimes the best just doesn’t happen. More than ever, the companies just don’t follow the market trends which are changing rapidly.
One of the best examples are banners and the fact that everyone thinks of them as dead. However, they are still the main tool for the advertisers when it comes to digital marketing.
We are far from 1994 when the banner ads first appeared (Wikipedia). It was the time when they played a significant role in enabling the rapid development of paid advertising on the Internet.
With the standard formats, operation (clickable link to a destination), and pricing system (impressions), it was and still is a great tool. One of the first banner ads campaigns was created in the digital agency Modem Media for client AT&T. The campaign was great because it was an answer to customer needs. After they clicked on the banner ad they were redirected to hotwired.com and given a free online tour through the seven most prestigious museums from all over the World (Louvre, among them).
But nowadays, when we became “ad blind” there are better ways of advertising if you want to create a real and lasting impact to your client’s customers.
Joe McCambley, one of the first digital marketing specialists, innovator and author of the banner ad mentioned above discovers how the digital era might look:
Case one
Consumers are migrating to mobile devices. Simply said: They get the job done. They check the news on Facebook or Twitter. They search Google Maps for directions, take photos with Instagram and upload them to Facebook.
They share stuff that interests them.
The question is: Do you have a story to tell?
Case two
Advertisers follow eyeballs. Unfortunately, ad agencies have been taking the worst ad experience ever invented — banners — and simply shrinking them to fit mobile screens. Ever heard of the ‘fat finger sindrome’? Google it. Thx.
Because guess what? Nobody is going to share a mobile banner, they simply offer no help.
Case number three
Because of all the things mentioned above publishers are suffering. Moreover, even Google has seen declines in cost per click as consumers migrate from PCs to smart phones. Ineffective ads. Less money.
As a result, there are a lot of available, very talented producers of useful content, especially journalists.
Hopefully there is a way out. If the story is the one that sells who can do it better than an experienced journalist with some digital skills…
Your turn.
Comment and share your thoughts. Thx for reading.
