• by October 17, 2000

A new Forrester Research study is causing quite a stir in the industry this week - it suggests that banner ads actually do work for some types of products, and have no effect whatsoever for other types of products in terms of driving short-term sales. Imagine that!

According to Forrester, when people were exposed to banner ads for "impulse food products" - snacks, candy, soda - product sales increased by 19%. And, there's a direct connection between frequency and effectiveness. Sales went up once people were exposed to an impulse food product banner at least seven times.

Thus, according to Forrester, impulse food product advertisers might achieve better results by repeatedly exposing the same users to their ads, rather than striving to reach sheer volumes of people. "For low-involvement products that are not planned purchases, banner ads are just as effective as TV advertisements in driving short-term sales," says study author Robert Rubin.

For non-impulse items, however, banners don't work no matter how often people see them, the study says, because consumers tend to plan on buying things like kitchen cleaners and deodorant in advance.

And that's research!