A while back I said that friends don’t let friends post banner ads. I’ve also discussed that banner ads are a bad idea…so if you weren’t clear as to my general thoughts on them…I not exactly a fan. Last week a friend sent me a link to a study that was taken nearly three years ago that gauges people’s perspectives of various Internet advertising formats. What is most interesting is that despite all my disdain for banner ads…they’re actually the most favorable form of ads on the entire list. The most obtrusive ads, like pop ups, are ranked the lowest. Here’s the link if you missed it.

Two things came to mind when I saw this:

• With the way technology has changed and the influx of text ads since this study was taken, I cannot believe that the numbers would be any better now. Three years ago people wouldn’t have been as familiar with text ads (and therefore not known there was a better, less annoying way to do online advertising).
• Let’s say these numbers are still valid…look at the percentage of people who are not “very positive” about the selected ad methods. In every single case you are more likely to get a negative response than a positive response…so why would you do it?

I talk about all of this to say that if you’re considering spending money on Internet advertising, particularly the forms mentioned in this study, there are better things you can do like blogging which won’t cost you anything but will take some time to develop…and therein lies the problem.

Many organizations and marketing departments actually have more money than time. Yes, they’ll say they don’t have any money but what they have even less of is time. They have deadlines, timelines, and deliverables that they’re trying to manage and all the while they can say (quite honestly) that they don’t have time to set up blogs for the very products or services they’re spending all this time on. The downside to blogs is that they aren’t usually quick impact promotion elements, which are what many marketing people need…after all, it’s in their timeline. So when they choose these methods, are they really saying that they prefer to annoy a segment of customers with minimal opportunities for return on their investments in order to fulfill their well prepared (though ill conceived) plans? Possibly.

The impact of blogs for promotion will rarely be immediate but you won’t be frustrating people either. In the long run you’ll connect to more people for longer through the blogs but you have to be in it for the long run.

I had a tough conversation recently. It was tough because I had to let a client make the wrong decision. In fact, I told them it was the wrong decision, and I was tactful, but they got the message. After my gentle protest and suggestion for taking another approach I was met with a resounding gong of silence (insert cricket sounds here) and it was then that I knew they were going to do it anyway. What is it? IT was banner ads.

The goal this client came to us with was to drive more traffic to their website but they already had decided they wanted to try to accomplish this with banner ads on a particular website they selected. After a few minutes of listening to them I just had to tell them that it isn’t generally a good idea and that there are better (and much cheaper) ways to go about it. As I mentioned above they wanted to do it anyway…and so they are…but here’s where we’re really going to test this…

In addition to the banner ads we’re going to put some video for this company’s same product on YouTube. We’ll be able to track the number of views and links from both areas and see what happens. I don’t quite know what they’re going to pay for a month of banner ads…but I know what they’re going to pay for the YouTube video…$0.00. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

I’ll admit, I’ve got an issue with banner ads. I rank them right up there with the people who sell email lists that are usually just spam. Banner ads are the very reason I was interested in switching from Hotmail to Gmail a year or so ago (Gmail only has text ads). Banner ads just don’t work most of the time. They’re not a wise expense. An effective banner ad would have to be highly targeted on a very specific kind of site to even have a chance. For instance if Apple had a banner ad for an iPod accessory they’re going to have a good chance of getting some attention for the ad, but even then most people still ignore them. By and large banner ads are ignored and with all the effective (and free) web 2.0 options today like blogs, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, video blogs, Wikipedia, etc. there are much better ways to go. Needless to say I’m excited to see how this little experiment turns out! In the end I expect the score to be: Banner ads - 0, Web - 2.0.