| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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In addition, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) also confirms that revenues from banner ads remained strong in 2004. According to the IAB’s 2004 revenue report, banner ads accounted for 26% of Internet ad revenue during the fourth quarter of 2004, being ranked only second to the revenue made by the search ad format, which accounted for 40% of the total ad revenue (IAB, 2005).
There are several advantages in using banner ads over other forms of Internet advertising. First, banner ads can be used on almost all types of Web sites without complications, while some ad formats such as keyword search ads or classified ads require Web sites that have special features such as interactive search functions. Second, they are the least intrusive form of online advertising currently available on the Internet. Third, they can easily integrate rich media or video ad formats that have potential to evoke emotions in users.
The Purpose of the Study
As more and more banner ads compete for users’ attention, the primary concern of banner designers is to make banner ads more salient than other Web elements. Banner designers have an inventory of “attention-grabbing” techniques that are believed to be effective in attracting users’ attention and increasing recall probability. These techniques include adding animation or sound, writing simple but strong text, or using appealing pictures.
However, there is also concern that excessive use of these techniques may have undesirable effects. For instance, Web users complain that animation, the most popular attention-getting technique, distracts them from concentrating on what they intend to do on the Web. They also subjectively believe that their performance on the primary task (e.g., information search) suffers when animated banner ads are on the screen, although research has shown that users’ objective performance did not decrease due to the animated ads (Burke, Gorman, Nilsen, & Hornof, 2004; Burke & Hornof, 2001).