King banner

Like so many, I completely tune out ad banners when I’m viewing the web. It doesn’t matter what format or size they are, whether it’s an animated spectacular or basic text links, I simply don’t pay any attention to banners any more.

This worries me, as when you start ignoring something it’s a short step to holding it in contempt. Something that’s all too easy when sites resort to obtrusive overlays: having to fiddle around with a flash banner covering up your content wasn’t the reason I came to your site (regardless of how you need to fund it).

Which is why seeing some of the new formats that sites like Slate and the New York Times are using is such a delight. These aren’t ads that get in the way of the content, they’re a piece of content in themselves. They’re also monumentally huge. So big that you can’t possibly ignore them. In fact they’re so big you almost can’t believe that anyone would have the balls to put an ad banner that enormous on the page.

It’s obvious to say that these ads work because they’re big. But they work because they’re the single most dominant item on the page. The site’s own images, text, branding and links all become subservient to the advertising when you scan the page.

Why does this matter? It becomes interesting when you look at pages that have large content elements or on pages that combine multiple ad formats.

For example, this page from Slate has two other ad banners on the page that are now completely and utterly lost, so dominating is the Jack Daniel’s banner. Even though the MPU is right in the heart of the content the eye simply skips over it (partially down to the JD banner but also because we’ve trained ourselves to ignore this type of advertising).

Whilst this home page from the New York Times Style Magazine has a perfectly reasonable banner on the right hand side, I’d say that it gets lost because the main content element is so big. It’s almost not worth having the banner on the page at all.

Interestingly, in this mock up of the same page with a monumental banner added, the two elements are so big that they start to cancel each other out.

This makes me wonder about sites that continue to use leaderboards and MPUs as their main source of display advertising. As the presentation aesthetic of the web continues to become ‘bigger’ and less busy all the time, supported by high download speeds that allow ever larger images, banners seem to have been left behind. Especially here in the UK.

Rather than using the increase in broadband coverage to increase the size and relative visual weight of banners, for advertisers broadband just seems to be an excuse to try and pump ever more flash into banners. Whereas the only way they’re actually going to be seen is if the balance on each page between content and advertising is right.

At the most extreme end of this the banner may need to be the biggest element on the page. No more sexy, big images or attention hugging content panels. The only way to shake people out of the complacency of ignoring banners is to rise them above the content.

Of course, this becomes a problem if the site’s inventory only includes MPUs and leaderboards. Everything would have to become small to compensate, a bit like going back to designing for 640×480 as everything other than the ads become tiny. However, this approach may still not work: we’re become conditioned to not notice the MPU. Monumental may be the only way to go, though I wonder how long it will take for us to become house trained to not notice these bad boys either.

Here the advertisers have some advantages. Firstly, the trend for moving away from content heavy right hand columns works in their favour. What used to be on the right (related stories, about the author, features puffs etc) are now increasingly found at the bottom of the article: it’s a more logical ‘where next’ for users. This means that there’s more room on the right for big banners.

Secondly, screens are becoming bigger and bigger. We’re definitely no longer living in a 1024 world. (Some of our clients are now reporting over 75% of users viewing their sites at 1280 and above). However, wide screens don’t change the optimum line width of a piece of text for maximum legibility. That’s always going to be 66 characters or so (the same number of characters in the line width of a paperback book).

So, even if you increase the point size, the line length (or measure) can never get that big. (If you were to increase the text size by huge increments merely to increase the line width you’d be in trouble – if you’ve ever read a large print book you’ll know it’s like being shouted at for the length of a novel.)

But if the page’s content is constrained by the width of the text, why not use the rest of the page for advertising? Has the time come for king banner to take over?