If you're like me, you probably have a tendency to blank out banner adverts that appear to the top, left and right of web pages you visit. This 'affliction' is commonly referred to as banner blindness and has resulted in a huge reduction in the number of people likely to click, or interact, with the message on a banner. In order to engage customers, marketers have had to resort to more interactive, or rich banner ads, that catch your eye as you fly through a busy website – think Yahoo!, CNET, New York Times.
Recently, I must admit, I have started to become a lot more aware of banner ads – probably due to the clever videos, brand or some other trick and have, on occasion, moused over the ad to see it displayed full screen, in all its glory. These sorts of ads don't require you to click and usually fill the whole, or part of the screen, with their video content.
Just this morning I saw a very simple, powerful ad from Cancer Research UK, for Race for Life, which not only ran the video but also invited viewers to share the video. The great thing about these 'share facilities' is that they can be used by most web users. Practically all of us fit into the category of MySpace, Facebook or Yahoo! users, whilst others are bloggers on TypePad, WordPress or Blogger; a smaller amount of us use Vox or Squidoo. This facility is so neat as it means that the coverage of the banner ad moves out of the portal or website that you're viewing it on, with its own defined target audience. and extends out into Facebook and MySpace profiles pages and networks or onto blogs that cover an array if topics, like this one!
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