Online ad spend overtakes TV

See that hideous thing up there? Well that’s the world’s first banner ad , created by AT&T and served in 1994. Let me tell you my reader friends, things have come a long way indeed. A recent report from the IAB has suggested that online ad spend rose 4.6% in the first half of the year, giving it a 23.5% market share and edging it ahead of TV spend. What makes it even more impressive is the context within which that 4.6% growth occurred: the overall advertising sector declined by 16.6% in the same period. Now remember that it’s not all down to lovely banners such as the one above. In fact, much of the growth came from search and online classifieds. We think you’ll agree that this is all very excellent news.

Banner FAIL

Ok ok it’s not technically a fail. At least not the kind defined by the New York Times in their recent and very insightful article ‘How Fail Went From Verb to Interjection’. But it is really really rubbish. Top tip for QuickCreditScore.co.uk: don’t create banner ads using Powerpoint and recycled smilies. That is all.

Facebook rolls out its new ad system

Though we’re not quite convinced “The next 100 years are going to be different for advertisers” because of it as founder Mark Zuckerberg would have us believe, Facebook’s new ad system is very interesting indeed. First and foremost, brands are now able to create profile pages (10,000 of which were launched yesterday), similar to what we’ve been seeing on MySpace for some time now. Any interaction with this page such as becoming a ‘fan’ of the brand, uploading photos or posting discussions is then communicated to your friends via their news feeds. ‘Vicky has started a discussion on Coca Cola, click here to see what all the fuss is about’. The idea behind this is that ads will seem more like referrals from friends than a brand breathing its message down your neck. As Zuckerberg puts it: “Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend.” From what we can gather so far, creating a branded page is free but the news feed ads are auctioned based on impressions or clicks. It will also be easier to spread word of branded apps as every installation from a friend will be accompanied by similar newsfeed posts.