Still alive and kicking

According to e-volve (MW 29 January), the internet is indeed rapidly coming of age as a medium.

Following hot on the heels of otherÂuniversal marketing wisdoms such asÂthe long-forecast death of television advertising,Âyou are now bemoaning the death of an internet advertising format that is barely a decade old.

This surely proves that everything in the digital world happens much, much faster. TheÂheadline and opening paragraphÂof the article in question announcedÂthe”common view that banner advertising is dead”.

As any interactive mediaÂcompany will tell you, we are used to having to fight to gain our place on anÂadvertising schedule.ÂOnceÂwe have,Âonline advertising usually remains there becauseÂit tends to achieve andÂexceed whatever metricsÂhave been set up for measuring success.

These mayÂinclude awareness, sales, registration, website visits and sometimes just plain old clicks on banners and other online advertising forms.

Our less-than-startling findings are that different ad formats work in different ways on different websites for different advertisers and, as is true for any medium, a mix of communication tends to be most effective for both awareness and response based campaigns.

So universal comments about births, deaths and all lifestages in between rarely hold true.

Beyond the headline, the article did go on to then sayÂthat “the banner is here to stay” and noted the fact that online advertising spend has doubled in the past two years – with the inference that surely we must be doing something right!

Howard Nead

Managing director

PHDiQ

London WC1