• by Kate Kaye , January 5, 2003

Who’d have thought one of the first online publishers to turn its back on the Web’s most traditional ad format would be the one with the most straight-laced mascot?

Ask Jeeves Web Properties, a division of Ask Jeeves, Inc. has announced today the removal of all banner ads from the Ask Jeeves site, www.ask.com. The bold move echoes similar backlashes by publishers against other disparaged ad formats, including iVillage’s July 2002 decision to eliminate interstitials, a.k.a. pop-ups, from its site, and new-to-the-scene Yahoo competitor, My Way’s “No banners. No pop-ups. No Kidding.” mission statement.

The recent unveiling of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s banner-shunning Universal Ad Package also proved foreboding for the archetypal 468x60 banner ad unit.

“The industry has to become more creative about how we deliver our advertisements,” declares Steve Berkowitz, president of Web Properties at Ask Jeeves. “We need to continue to push the envelope.”

Considering responses from user focus groups and the fact that banners were performing poorly when compared to its other ad offerings, Ask Jeeves decided to ax banners. The ban comes on the heels of the removal of pop-ups and run-of-site banners from the search site.

According to Berkowitz, banners, which appeared at the top of search result listing pages simply weren’t performing well and “pushed results down on the page.” That meant that the site’s more unique ad options, such as its Branded Response unit were not getting as much user attention as they could have been. Following a series of tests during which banners were removed from the site on different days for varied blocks of time, Ask Jeeves found that “the overall yield on the page went up” for the Branded Response format, meaning more people clicked on and interacted with the ads.

Along with its sponsored Premier Listing offering, the site plans to focus on its large Branded Response unit which sits at the top of result listing pages when users search on specific keywords and can be used for branding as well as action-oriented purposes. Currently, an Expedia Branded Response ad featuring the travel site’s logo and an interactive flight search tool is prompted when users enter the phrase, “cheap airfare.” Ask Jeeves also lists the top four Google search results above its regular non-sponsored listings.

For Ask Jeeves, dropping banners means higher yield per page which translates to more ad revenue per page and ad format, and potentially a better return on investment for advertisers.

But does this spell demise for the banner? Don’t count on it just yet. While search engines and portals have the advantage of delivering hyper targeted sponsored listing ads based on user-defined interests, pure content publishers like newspaper and magazine sites won’t forsake the banner until there’s something else to take its place.

“A lot of content sites can’t afford to remove banners because they don’t have anything to replace them with,” observes Berkowitz, who hopes to see publishers ”target better based on search technology and better targeting technology” in the future.

“I don’t think banners are going away,” Berkowitz opines, adding that “search technology will be a big piece of driving“ the ability for pure content sites to deliver more targeted ads.