Building the Online Brand

JEAN BERGANTINI GRILLO

E-commerce experts develop guidlines to heighten the effectiveness of online advertisements

Truth be told, banner ads are mostly boring.

In fact, according to a recent Dynamic Logic/AdIndex study, "In most cases, (Internet) users view banner advertisements as a nuisance, as they are engaged in other activities while being exposed to the ad - additionally, most people exposed to an ad don't have a need for the products being advertised at that time."

What to do? Three individuals with real investment in e-commerce undertook to find that answer, debuting their results at the Advertising Research Foundation's Surviving the Internet conference held in New York.

They insist Five Golden Rules of Online Branding will assure effective Internet branding, specifically: Limit clutter. Use larger logos. Use larger banners. Depict a human face to increase interest. Don't limit frequency.

According to Michael Carlon, director, Dynamic Logic; Marc Ryan, director/media research, AdRelevance; and Risa Weledniger, research director, 24/7 Media, as attractive as online banners are for building brand awareness, there are built-in shortcomings involved with using click-throughs as a measurement for banner effectiveness. Not only do click-throughs fail to recognize whether the viewer even is interested in the product being bannered, they report, but click-through measurement doesn't quantify the impact of banner exposure in terms of consumer attitudes and perceptions of the brand being promoted.

Their study measures banner impact in another way - branding.

"This data is critical," says Carlon, "especially because 99% of online advertising impressions are not clicked on at all."

Given that the vast majority of online users pass over the opportunity to click further, adds Ryan, "Branding definitely (becomes) a metric that can replace click-throughs."

According to Carlon, what this joint study shows is, "Interactivity does positively impact branding. And there are specific characteristics of all effective banner ads."

Dynamic Logic, an online research company that specifically measures Internet advertising beyond the click, initially reached out to 24/7, an agency with a major focus on online advertising clients, in order to assemble a significant number of online banner ads. Together, the two companies looked at 32 banner ads made up from more than 32,000 consumer interviews. Once Carlon and Weledniger came up with their Five Rules, they then ran them by AdRelevance, a Jupiter/Media Metrix company with a data- base of its own. AdRelevance took the Rules and discovered which advertisers or ad categories followed each most winningly.

"This study is very important to the market," adds Ryan. "Click-throughs have died as a metric, but people still need help to understand how to create better banner ads that will reach people."

"We have been working with Dynamic Logic/AdIndex since October 1999," adds Weledniger. "24/7 is a global Internet technology and marketing company. With offices in 51 cities in 28 countries, we reach nearly 60% of all Internet users. We needed to prove advertising on the Internet works beyond click throughs."

AdIndex, part of Dynamic Logic, is a research application that advertisers plug into their online campaigns. Using an experimental design methodology, it tracks advertising exposure and recruits samples of people actually targeted by the advertising. Respondents take a short online survey with brand-oriented questions using variables such as brand awareness, message association, purchase intent, ad recall, interest in the product and perceived creative clarity.

First, the clutter factor.

"An excessive number of creative elements in a banner reduces its ability to raise banner awareness and limits consumer recall," Carlon explains. The numbers of design elements his study looked at ranged from 1 to 51.

"Designers should keep their creative elements short, to the point, using no more than 15 textural or graphic elements," he says.

According to AdRelevance, the travel industry scores highest in limited clutter, with only 10% of their online ads deemed overly full. B to B and retail, however, had 41% and 40% clutter-filled.

Logo size also is crucial.

"Use large logos to transmit as clear a message as possible," Carlon says. "For 468x60 banners, the median logo size is approximately 14% of banner size. To improve clarity of message, logos should be larger than that whenever possible."

The entertainment industry and the travel industry both scored well here, both using large logos in 80% of their banners.

Banner size affects consumer desire.

Using a larger banner works to whet that interest.

"The hardware industry and the electronics industry use large banners more than any other," Ad Relevance reports, with retail using the smaller banners in a full 62% of those tracked.

One way to increase consumer interest and desire to know more about a brand is to literally put a human face on that ad.

"Using a human face may unconsciously connect viewers with the brands being presented," Carlon says. But only 13% of banner ads do that, with only the consumer goods industry bucking that trend.

While these four are considered "characteristics" of effective banner ads, the trio decided to include the fifth component, frequency, simply because more is more.

"A frequency cap can be detrimental to a campaign ability to build brand awareness," the study reports.

Specifically, avoid a "frequency of one exposure" with awareness reaching its peak at, at least, five exposures.

Bottom line, says Ryan, for many major advertisers, such as McDonald's, is that their banner ads should no longer be created just to propel an immediate sale. Rather than order up a burger and fries, fast food retailers are also looking to build awareness and long-term brand loyalty.

"In fact, what they are trying to do is convince the consumer to do something (positive)," he notes, "not necessarily to make a purchase at that moment."

According to Weledniger, 24/7 has been working with multiple advertisers that include a major package goods company, a major cable network, one of the top two automotive companies and several airlines and travel companies.

"We are extremely pleased with AdIndex," she says. "Many traditional advertisers are advertising on the Internet because we can provide them with this new metric."

Concludes Carlon, "By looking at the quality of Internet advertising, we've shown it might not be the Web site (that creates the impact) but something about the Internet ad itself."