In case my reputation as an oft-outspoken crusader against intrusive online ad tactics precedes me, I would like to clarify: I love advertising.

I currently have no less than seven different advertising campaigns hanging on my walls as low-budget art and I consider a great television commercial to be every bit as enjoyable and worthwhile as the programming it pays for.

In my own mind this begs the question, 'So what's my problem with online ads?'

There has been a great deal of discussion of late among online journalism and design circles regarding the ethics, effectiveness, consequences, etc. of various online advertising techniques: Ads so large the navigation bar has to go, ads so large they block content and force a vertical jump, ads incorporated into logos, ads that temporarily cover content and ads served with JavaScript so <noscript> users be damned.

I have no doubt that click-through numbers go up when these tactics are used. I'm guessing they don't even keep most users from continuing to use the site (though they undoubtedly enjoy it less).

But what all this says to me is that in the large scheme of things there has been a massive creative failure in the world of online advertising.

Companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars -- millions even -- to design and produce creative, witty, thought-provoking, memorable (... you get the idea) ad campaigns for television and print, but most seem to have adopted a "heck, what's the point if it's just going online?" attitude.

It's not really my area so I don't know the numbers, but from sheer proximity to ad/marketing staffs at various companies I do know that it's not uncommon for online advertisers to just deliver basic specs to the company serving the ad and have its staff throw something together.

Quite frankly, I don't get it.

Is it because statistics show users pay less attention to online ads? I'll take a big leap of faith and assume there are no problems with the accuracy of such numbers. How do we know it's the chicken and not the egg? Or is it the egg and not the chicken?

That is, perhaps users don't ignore ads because they're online but rather because advertisers don't produce online ads worth noticing.

It is just as easy for users to walk out of a room during commercial breaks (or TiVo them away) or to flip right past print ads, but advertisers don't just give up and say 'Here's $1000, make it blue' to buy a presence in those types of media.

My point is that while intrusive ad tactics may "work" from the perspective of the number crunchers, they make your users' experience less enjoyable. There's no getting around that. But I believe that online advertising can be done well and that when it is, it's a valuable service to users and one they'll appreciate, not resent.

From a pure consumer standpoint, I think it's extremely rare to find compelling online ads -- note to self: start collecting standouts for theUON -- but for what it's worth here are my early recommendations based on what few techniques do draw me in effectively (and a few ideas that I haven't seen but I think might work):

1. Slow movement
That's movement as in changing images or highlighting different parts of an ad -- NOT moving the ad across the page or over content -- a tactic I remain completely and firmly against. And sloooow is the key here. Quick-motion ads create too great a contrast against the soothingly static content of the page, begging users to avert their eyes and ignore not only the ad but anything in its general area. This is one area where I support the use of Flash-served ads which allow changing images to fade slowly in and out, a movement which actually attracts rather than repels.

2. Creative tower/skyscraper ads
These ads are large, giving designers adequate creative space, yet require little if any interruption of content. I find these particularly effective for stories on news sites, where scrolling is likely. If you really want to catch my attention and you know the content the ad will run with is going to be deep, just keep on going (not all one image of course) and stack three skyscrapers with frames like a comic strip. Design me a story. If I don't notice it right away, I'm bound to when it's still with me 12 inches in, especially if it's still there when I start losing interest in a story. If I've already skipped over your ad -- you know, the large one that was blocking the content a while back -- it's gone, forget about it, I've hit the back button already. If your long, skinny ad is still with me... who knows.

3. Close-ups
I think one common mistake is to try and squish too much visual information into a relatively small area. Rather than demanding super-sized ads, be selective with the information you present and then display it creatively and large enough so users can see what you're trying to show them. An ad is a tease to get the click-through, not a brochure.

4. Pair with ad campaigns in other media
The value of this seems pretty obvious to me. Penetration of the non-print-reading market, the ad concept is already in place, and at a minimum you're reinforcing brand and message recognition. Don't feel like I see it being practiced though.

5. Celebrity appeal
You can't turn around twice without seeing a celebrity endorsement in every other form of advertising, but online? Not so. If I'm on the sports page and I see an intriguing close-up of Tiger with product X in the rail, I'm going to look at it. And I would imagine this holds true -- perhaps to a lesser degree -- for well-known local celebrities. For better or worse (OK probably worse) our society values beauty and fame. It baffles me that online advertisers don't better capitalize on this.

6. Color!
Use color liberally and creatively. If you're designing an ad for a specific site, you know the existing color palette so choose colors that will stand out against it without making users wince. If you're designing for a national ad you have less to go on, but if we're talking specifically about news sites you can bet the vast majority of story pages will have white or very light backgrounds because it's too hard to read large amounts of text against anything else. Therefore any color scheme is probably going to be more effective than a design based on a white background. Also remember that most sites have a lot going on, so it's usually best to stick with one prominent background color, allowing your ad to stand out as a whole and make the best use of whatever amount of space you've purchased.

April 24, 2003