The Death of the Banner Unit is Greatly Exaggerated

A few weeks ago, I spoke at OMMA Global in LA, on an industry panel entitled “What is Content.” One of the panelist said that traditional banner ad units are dead…I couldn’t disagree more. Pronouncements like that remind me of statements made in past; Newspapers are dead (when Radio was invented,) like Radio is dead (when TV was invented,) Broadcast Television is Dead (when cable came along,) and so on, and so on. My thoughts can be can be summarized by one statement

"Traditional banner units are dead, long live traditional banner units."

In the social media space this thinking has manifested itself into the pursuit of new ad units that “interact with users” and are “socially desirable”…there are numerous smart companies that are hard charging at this, most refer to themselves as widget companies…and someday some of them will emerge as viable marketing platforms. The road for those companies will be hard, and the prizes may be elusive.

All these “new unit” types by and large require a “Passion Brand.” A passion brand is one that a consumer is in love with, wants to be associated with, and in essence will wrap their personal reputation around. By and large there are very few passion brands that people want to be friends with, and for those selective few brands...this approach may be icing on the cake...but the heavy lifting, the creation of the brand, and it's appeal...happens in a more banal format...the plain old often accessible, but mostly overlooked...standard media unit (:30 second spot on TV, Radio spot, Newspaper Ad, Billboard, and yes the Web Banner Ad)

When I was a younger person, a traditional :30 second ad (see below) totally convinced me that elves bake cookies in with magic fudge in a tree… – try doing that with a text link! (please don’t dispel the magic cookie elves myth for me, it is my own perverse "brand" reality, where elves make cookies, a green giant picks vegetables, and an old guy gets up early, muttering to himself "it's time to make the donuts")

These are the battleground formats, where brands can communicate with their prospective customers about new products, features, goods and services. Where the brands can use imagery and copy to create a look and feel for the product...all the while hopefully building themselves into a passion brand that someone would want to be friends with. That being said, I strongly question the sanity of a person who wants to be friends with a laundry detergent or a bar of soap.