• Mediaweek, Monday, November 24, 2008 11:46 AM

Will a recession finally kill off the banner ad? Mediaweek's Mike Shields thinks it might. In the midst of a recession, advertisers cut back on brand spending, moving instead to performance based ads, which is bad news for the banner. As Shields says, "Whether traditional banner ads, skyscrapers or 350x200 rich media units, Web ads are eminently ignorable, and rarely move one to laugh or cry." In fact, some industry experts claim that image-based ads are ripe for a rethink.

"There is still a school of thought that it is a low-impact ad environment," said eMarketer analyst David Hallerman. "With money tightening, people say, 'How effective is it?'" According to media buyer Greg March, digital group director at Wieden+Kennedy, the answer is "Not very": "Internet ads are small and out of the way," he said. "Advertisers want to deliver impact, and I don't think the impact for these ads is always that strong."

Others, like Vivek Shah, group digital president at Time Inc., think it's more of a question of brand versus direct response. "In times like this, the balance can tilt towards direct. That's a challenge for traditional content sites that rely on display ads." Jim Spanfeller, CEO of Forbes.com, thinks that the rise of ad networks has put the focus back on performance-based banner ads. He believes that that sort of thinking "devalues brand advertising."

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