Let's Clarify.

At no point did I say, “DOWN WITH ADVERTISING, TEH INTERNETS SHOULD BE TEH ALL FREE!”

My point is that banner / display / interruptive / pop-up / whatever ads are not a very effective way to convey a brand message in this day and age. And certainly making them LARGER and MORE intrusive is not going to change that.

Other things that aren’t going to change that: gimmicky shit like making the banner on the side that no one looks at interact with the banner on the top that no one looks at. Nor making a giant animated ipod jump down from the top of the page and shake the nav bar. Nor making the banner ads that no one looks at into full-motion video ads that on one looks at.

This type of advertising — ALL OF IT — is akin to having obnoxious billboards slapped across every open space in your neighborhood. I don’t care if your ad is a flashing gif or a multimillion dollar animated piece by TBWA, it is, effecitvely, an obnoxious billboard that announces its presence with all the elegance of used car salesman.

There’s got to be a better way to do this, that’s what I’m saying. Online advertising (in these instances) is effectively just relying on the SAME idea for “advertising on the internet” that was developed more than 10 years ago. An ad box that no one wants or looks at is a box that no one wants or looks at, whether it’s 30px x 30px or 9000px by 20000px.

I’m saying, instead of these online advertising czars thinking “how should we change these ‘ad boxes’”, perhaps everyone might be better served by thinking in terms of “let’s start from scratch and determine what, exactly, does ‘advertising’ mean in light of today’s society, technology, and market?” and working on something NEW from there.

Just because it works in print (“slap an ad next to that editorial!”) doesn’t mean it’s the best way to do it online. And just because something is measurable (“look, your ad got 5,600,987 impressions with 20 clickthrus!”) doesn’t mean it’s GOOD or EFFECTIVE. All it means is its “measurable.”