• by Kate Kaye , March 17, 2004

In its advent, rich media advertising spelled doom for the plain vanilla banner ad. Now, it just might come to the banner's rescue. Ad technology firm Eyeblaster has teamed up with Yahoo! to promote Eyeblaster's 100K Polite Banner unit. In addition to running a 100K banner campaign on trade publications' Web sites, Eyeblaster is hoping that Yahoo!'s decision to slash additional technology fees will coax more advertisers to try the gradually loading unit.

"Awareness of the 100K banner is not as high as we'd like it to be, so we'll be stepping up the marketing of the format," affirms Paul Kadin, executive-VP, marketing and strategy, Eyeblaster.

Typically, site publishers won't accept banners with file sizes exceeding 30K in order to ensure quick page loads. The 100K Polite Banner, however, has a maximum file size of 100K, and is accepted by Yahoo! as well as publishers that accept other Eyeblaster formats. Because the larger Eyeblaster banners load in stages, they don't slow down page loading. In addition to ensuring a non-disrupted user experience, the units allow for more creative leeway. The Polite Banner technology can be incorporated into any of Yahoo!'s standard banner formats, including monster ads, north banners, rectangles, skyscrapers, and super banners.

"Advertisers can create a richer experience, and the polite loading won't affect user experience," a Yahoo! spokesperson says. "It's a win for both consumers and advertisers."

And that could translate into more banner ad sales for Yahoo!, especially in conjunction with the new pricing incentive. Eyeblaster, like other rich media technology providers, charges publishers a fee to use its ad technologies. Publishers usually pass that cost on to advertisers by tacking technology fees onto media fees. Although Yahoo! is playing down the price reduction, its decision to remove the technology fee from the cost of running 100K Polite Banners on its site indicates that the Internet giant is willing to put its money where its mouth is. The pricing change is effective immediately, according to Eyeblaster's Kadin.

To help promote the format, Eyeblaster will launch a campaign employing the 100K Polite Banner unit. Ads that read: "All banners on Yahoo! now support 100K, powered by Eyeblaster" will run in ad industry trade publications.