CReATION: Setting the rules for venturing beyond the Internet banner ad

<p>For all those who believe the banner is dead and has the potential </p><p>to grab user attention for no more than a nano-second, banner evangelism </p><p>is a wasted task. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>According to Renren.com VP, marketing and sales, Richard Robinson, </p><p>however, the banner is here to stay - with a fair dose of reinvention </p><p>currently keeping it nimble, and banner 'boosters' such as Rich Media, </p><p>pop-up windows, interstitials and permission marketing livening up the </p><p>'Net advertising space. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Making the inevitable comparison of Asia's markets to the US was vital, </p><p>he noted, because Internet adspend figures for Asia and Hong Kong were </p><p>still thin on the ground. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"Back in 1998, banners made up half of US online adspend - this year, it </p><p>will shrink to a quarter, and it's estimated that US$5 billion </p><p>was spent in online advertising last year alone." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Speaking at MEDIA's recent Technology Marketing Seminar in Hong Kong, Mr </p><p>Robinson also predicted that over the next year and a half, Asia would </p><p>catch up with the US Web model. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"For all the comments you can make about banners they really are here to </p><p>stay, they're effective and they're crucial from a branding and direct </p><p>call-to-action perspective," he said. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The beauty of creating a single banner ad and dispersing it across 50 </p><p>different websites was a key selling point - coupled with a banner </p><p>campaign's speed to market, hiked-up users reaction times and reduced </p><p>campaign costs. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Citing a rich media banner which Modem Media Poppe Tyson created for </p><p>Citibank's Stateside network and subsequently rolled out in the UK and </p><p>Taiwan, Mr Robinson hailed Javascript - enabling users to interact with </p><p>the banner wihout having to click-out to a separate Citibank site. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"Previously, it took about 12 hours to produce a high quality banner - </p><p>that includes all the strategising, the creative and the back-and-forth </p><p>with the client," he said, adding, "this was much more time consuming, </p><p>but then the user is called to action and gets a demo of some of the </p><p>banking services". </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Java's saving grace enabled Citibank to identify when there was a mouse </p><p>cursor hovering over the banner, even though the user hadn't technically </p><p>engaged in any click-through. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"We were able to tell that over a third of people interacted with the </p><p>banner because their mouse was placed over it," said Mr Robinson. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"Twelve per cent of people actually clicked on it - that's pretty good, </p><p>considering that right now in the US, only 0.6 per cent of people </p><p>click-through at all." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>However, with the core expertise and cost commitment involved in such </p><p>ultra-rich banners, Asia, Mr Robinson noted, would most likely not be </p><p>seeing similar, complex banners in future. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>In the realm of online advertising spend, sponsorship was also consuming </p><p>large chunks of the adspend pie, while Intel's deal with Yahoo Hong Kong </p><p>recently paved the way for the "under-utilised" delivery of </p><p>advertisements juxtaposed with editorial. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"Editorial adjacency means that click-through counts, because it's </p><p>relative to editorial - which means people are in a much more receptive </p><p>mindset when they click-through," Mr Robinson said. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Tapping into the power of "word of mouse", enabling users to become </p><p>marketers by emailing the likes of pop-ups and animation to their </p><p>friends - this form of engaging, unusual "viral marketing" is fast </p><p>emerging as the catchy and cost-effective one to watch. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Renren.com's own Chinese New Year offering - a "sticky, fun", animated, </p><p>musical Chinese dragon which popped up on registered user's screens - </p><p>cost the company the equivalent of buying a million banner </p><p>impressions. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Paying off with worldwide site awareness, branding promotion and calls </p><p>to action, the gimmick was deemed a marketing success. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"If this is sitting on someone's desktop they have to click it to go </p><p>away, and what pops up after enables you to send it right through to a </p><p>friend, or you can give it a call to action and click onto our </p><p>homepage," said Mr Robinson. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"Say you buy one million banner impressions - and let's say you have a </p><p>10 per cent click-through rate - you're talking about 10,000 people </p><p>clicking through to your site; while we had 240,000 downloads of this </p><p>and 25,000 people coming to the site." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>In the viral league, email marketing was forecast to be next in line for </p><p>the "explosion", making a credible play for the hearts and pockets of </p><p>Asia's Web users. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"Email is not spam - unsolicited email is spam," Mr Robinson said. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"It has to really be used properly and it's about permission marketing - </p><p>that is, getting someone's permission to market to them." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>As gaining the trust of users increasingly pays off, the personalised </p><p>touch of email marketing is becoming a fast track to elusive higher </p><p>click-through rates. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Advocating rules of thumb for email marketing, he championed "teaser </p><p>emails", affording users targeted clues to sites, as opposed to similar </p><p>text-heavy offerings. </p><p><BR><BR> </p>