The Banner is dead! Long live the Banner!
by Heather Champ
Though rather a contradiction in terms, "The Banner is Dead! Long live the Banner!" is a somewhat apt description for what both sides of this particular advertising debate wish for.It's been proven on a number of occasions that a subscription model doesn't work, or at least hasn't worked in the past. Disney is planning to try the subscription method with its new content area for children and it will prove interesting to see if the company can succeed where others have failed.
How can so few pixels, the standard banner size being 468 x 60, cause so much trouble? Besides working within the physical size constraints of the full- and half-sized ad banners, fitting in all the information in an eye-catching, "come click me" design, while ensuring a very low byte size, can be downright frustrating.
Last year I designed a series of banners that ran on the Bingo Zone for a client. The banners were to be no more than 8k each, which proved to be a challenge. After creating the elements in Photoshop, I began to play with reducing the bit depth in both Photoshop and Debabilizer, creating a number of test images to determine at what point the images retained a reasonable look and feel while fulfilling the small GIF size required by the specifications. Like any image created for the Web, the more limited the palette with large areas of flat color, the smaller the GIFs.
Beyond the size limitations, the design of the information is really the key. Most users consider the ads to be intrusive, a necessary evil of online commerce. So what can a designer do to minimize the intrusion? Research the banner location for one. Who is a typical user to that particular site or page? What would be the most appealing? What are the other banners doing?
Also, taking a good look at the competition's successes and failures can provide invaluable information into creating a banner that will generate traffic. Invariably, a banner that appears to be adding value to the user experience, and is not too invasive at the same time, will be more successful.
When I asked a friend for the most memorable ad banner, he immediately responded, "HP Pong," or the Hewlett Packard Pong. Interactive banners using Shockwave and Java are moving beyond the billboard to create an experience for the user within the banner itself. As less of a hard sell, these banners become the Easter eggs of sites, though not perhaps the most direct. Additionally, these technologies also allow for a low k image that fulfills the specifications but then allows for additional information to be streamed to the browser.
While the standard of the banner remains, these technologies will enable more of the user experience to take place within such a small amount of real estate, and reduce the necessity of the user ever leaving the page.
