• InternetUniversity: Ad Blockers
    About a year ago, a company called AdSubtract.com happily announced that its Internet ad- and cookie-blocking software had blocked well over 1 billion Internet ads for its users. The company said that while this number may make some advertisers and ad-servers very unhappy, it “represents an enormous benefit for AdSubtract users.” AdSubtract works by blocking all ads and cookies, pop-up windows (interstitials), animated GIF images, background music, Java and JavaScript, background images, and “referrers” that inform web servers of where a user is coming from. Advertisers were indeed unhappy, but didn’t think the software would have much of …
  • Big Banner Banter
    By now you’ve heard that the Internet Advertising Bureau has come up with new standards for bigger banners. At first glance, establishing guidelines for seven new ad units, two vertical units, and five large rectangular units seems like a major accomplishment on the IAB’s part. According to the announcement, IAB hoped that this new set of guidelines would “rejuvenate” the online advertising industry, but many saw this as a clear case of “too little, too late.” To everyone’s surprise (yes, I am being sarcastic here), a few weeks after the original release, the IAB announced that according to their …
  • Sponsorships, Who Will Survive?
    The banner-advertising model may soon be voted off the island. So what’s a buyer to do? Sponsor. When the host of Survivor offered up a tray of Doritos to contestants starving in the Australian Outback, that sponsorship paid off big time. Doritos is also one of the sponsors of the Survivor website, and in the online world, sponsorships are gaining an increasing share of total online ad revenue. According to the IAB, ad dollars spent on banners slipped from 54 percent of the total in second quarter 1999 to 46 percent in third quarter 2000. Along with interstitials and …
  • Media for the Online World - Your Brand Website, Part 2
    In last month’s column, I wrote that less than 20 percent of the top 100 brands are using their own website to showcase their television creative. To me, this a missed opportunity to put their highly impactful, very creative branding messages in front of their exact target audience, often right before an opportunity to make a purchase. However, there are a handful of brands that in my opinion do use their websites as a new medium for TV spots. Here are a few of them. Volkswagen (www.vw.com) Here you’ll find 19 of their latest TV spots, quite likely the …
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