We have been discussing the changing role of banners and sky scrapers recently. Click thro'' rates are so low at present the old purpose of a banner ad to generate clicks appears out dated. Question is what are they for? Well rather a lot of debate about there value as branding tools. Subconsciously building a warm feeling about a brand via repeated but not insistent viewings. This was all a hunch really in conjunction with Genna at AW Media, until Kevin sent me this great article "The Mere Exposure Effect" by Xiang Fang a professor at Oklahoma State University. In it he talks about evaluative judgements and perceptual fluency. Press release about it HERE. Very interesting to consider when looking at the true value of online brand spend. John Timmer at Ars Technica also covered it.
Banner ads as branding
