• by April 8, 2002

Disney Online announced today the launch of a new advertising format that expands upon the traditional banner ad.

This new unit, named “The Magic Banner,” engages website visitors with animated designs in a single, enlarged ad space at the top of the page. This creative design allows site advertisements to interact with the navigational and logo space of the Disney.com homepage, as well as several other areas of the site.

Once a visitor arrives at the Disney.com homepage, the Magic Banner animation actually originates outside the perimeter of the ad space and then draws the guest's attention into the ad itself.

Disney says that with the simplification of the ad space, visitors do not experience clutter from competing messages, and advertisers have a larger, more eye-catching platform with which to communicate their message.

According to the announcement, Mazda will be the first to advertise their MPV sweepstakes with a Magic Banner. Starting today, the speeding minivans driving across the top of the page will be aimed to draw the attention of consumers to a 630x70 pixel Magic Banner. When users click on it, they will be taken to the Mazda Raceway page for information about the MPV sweepstakes, games, cards or stickers, e-cards and even a 360 degree tour of the new 200-hp Mazda MPV. This element of the Mazda campaign will run on Disney sites until April 31st.