How to Combat Banner Blindness to Make Your Digital Advertising More Effective

Animated, rotating, pop up, flashing, blinking banner ads are cluttering and confusing most Internet sites to the point their effectiveness has been lost. Users are developing “banner blindness,” exiting out of ads or ignoring them all together. So is this form of digital advertising on its way out? No. Much like all other mediums, banner ads have to learn to evolve to find their hold on the market.

The Media Lab at the Interpublic Group recently did a study on the cognition of viewers of television and online video, despite constant distractions. The study showed online viewers paid more attention and recalled the message better. Researchers found that inserting the advertising message while viewers were already engaged provided a better chance the brand and message would be remembered. How does this information help combat banner blindness and make your digital advertising more effective? Well, by applying this study to your digital ads and being more creative.

Presenting your banners and message to online viewers when they are active is optimal. Online viewers prefer to interact by liking, commenting, filling out surveys or logging into their favorite sites. Including your banners and message in blogs, and asking for comments is one idea; or sponsoring surveys within your industry is another. Social media is also key in digital promotion. Using your banners and message as status updates or tweets provides online viewers the option to comment or like the information, and can potentially provide great feedback too.

MedWrench takes all of these options into consideration when customizing digital advertising campaigns for our clients. We combine social media promotion through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter with spotlights of our advertisers in our weekly enews, as well as promotion of client's banners and message in our weekly Blogs. To find out more about advertising options with MedWrench click here or contact Jayme McKelvey today.