• by March 13, 2001

To everyone's surprise (yes, I am being sarcastic here), the Internet Advertising Bureau today announced that according to their own survey, advertising industry decision-makers "overwhelmingly" support the IAB's recently released guidelines for interactive marketing units (the big banners).

As if the obvious conflict of interest is not enough, the results are based on responses of just 78 participants. The IAB said that an "almost unanimous majority" of those surveyed (93% or 73 people) view the new units as "more effective than previous guidelines. The enthusiastic support of the new guidelines by top-level agency representatives is underscored by the number of respondents (26% = 20 people) who have already utilized the new larger units."

First, everyone knows that by IAB standardizing the sizes, these bigger ad units do not suddenly become "new."

Second, Jupiter Media Metrix said yesterday that the number of unique online ads increased by nearly 70% during Q4 of 2000 but warned that their return on investment (ROI) is still unproven. The plainly said, "bigger ads don't necessarily mean better results for advertisers."

Third, never before has the IAB been criticized by the online ad industry as much as with these "new bigger banner" specs. Most saw the guidelines as a pathetic attempt to uphold the appearance of "the industry's leading online association," when in fact the organization has done nothing of note to "lead" the industry or to counter the slump of the last several months. Needless to say, the validity of this new survey seems to be just a tad iffy.

I should be used to this by now, so why rant, right? I do have a request: Could someone, anyone unbiased out there in the real online ad world PLEASE tell me the real pros and cons of using larger ad formats? Some simple honest guidance would be greatly appreciated!