Banner Ad Effectiveness Falling Away, But TV Ads Drive Internet Traffic

Two fifths of internet users claim to have clicked a banner ad during the last month, despite the fact that more than 50% also claim that “all web advertising annoys me”, according to new research from BMRB’s Internet Monitor. In contrast, during the last 12 months, the effectiveness of TV advertising in generating visits to sites has grown.

As the novelty of banner ads wears off, attitudes to web advertising were generally found to be more negative than positive. Just under half of respondents agreed with the statements “I think quite a lot of web advertising is devious” and “Nearly all web advertising annoys me.” It was also found that the more someone uses the web and the more experience of the medium they have, the more likely they are to hold these negative attitudes.

There is still some value in banner ads in terms of generating visits, as 37% of the respondents had been prompted to visit a site by a banner during the last month. However, year on year the figure has dropped from 51%. Heavy and more experienced users, while more likely to dislike internet advertising, are nevertheless the most likely to have clicked on banners. However, given the number of ads they are likely to have encountered in their usage patterns, it is thought that this group actually clicks on a small proportion of actual ads seen, giving them a more negative attitude towards the medium in real terms than less frequent and less experienced users.

With advertising acting as a major source of income to many of the dotcom startups, this is not good news. The last month has seen several fairly high profile sites go the way of Boo.com (see Internet Round-Up), and with only a fifth of respondents agreeing with positive statements such as “I find web advertising interesting” and “I find web advertising entertaining”, the survivors seem to have their work cut out for them.

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