Banner ads are now over 20 years old and for years, advertisers have been talking about its irrelevance for years. Back in 1998, the term “banner blindness” was coined yet now in 2019, banner ads still persist, even on mobile. But why is the banner ad so resilient?
One reason is that advertising is very much a real estate play and that space becomes increasingly more valuable as it shrinks from a desktop monitor to a laptop and then down to a tablet or your smart device. As the screen gets smaller, so then must the banner reduce as well. While this may sound somewhat counter-intuitive, mobile banner ads actually perform better than the desktop version. Studies have shown message recall and ad recognition increase as the screen size decreases.
If you look at the industry, myriad reports abound with the eye-popping numbers of video ads. 5x this and 300% of that. Yes, video ads are slick and the future and can convey so much more information. The number one objective of most ad campaigns is awareness, and you can just cram in everything to a 30-second video clip as opposed to a small banner at the bottom of the screen.
Why then, do we continue our long relationship with the banner in the face of much fancier video or playable ads? Interstitial cutscenes and rewarded videos are dynamic and sexy, but banners have their own advantages including:
In summary, banner ads aren’t always the correct choice for your campaign, but they certainly should not be ignored. With the limited space, you are forced to be clear and concise in your messaging, which leads to easier understanding by the viewer and an astonishingly high success rate for such an old school way of doing things.
