And while that's hardly surprising, given that we are passionate about online and that part of our remit is to champion innovation, this can also appear both arrogant and naive.
What's worse, though, is that it blinds us to our own outmoded habits. While we happily stand in front of clients and pontificate about the constancy of change in the digital world, we forget what this means for us: that we have to constantly change the way we approach client briefs. We may be young, but we have already amassed some tired old conventions of our own. Not least the banner ad and the microsite.
Now, rather like the TV ad, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with these formats. It is the use to which they are put and, most critically, the way in which they dominate our thinking that needs to be challenged. If it is wrong to start with a TV script, it is just as wrong to default to banners and a microsite.
Better to start by reminding ourselves of the premise that great marketing adds value to people's lives. The best TV advertising has always done this. Online, the banner ad has, historically, offered rather less opportunity to entertain and reward, so this is where the microsite has come in.
But this is an approach that was born in a period when there was a paucity of rewarding content online and when 'community' sites were untrustworthy or techie. The situation couldn't be more different today - and yet we continue to deploy the same tactics.
Why should we expect people to come to us, when they are perfectly happy where they are? To add value, a brand needs to go to them. Or allow them to take it with them - on whatever device they prefer. Downloads, widgets, mobile applications, competitions and challenges within different communities, branded content that is distributed to popular or relevant sites - these are all 'advertising' formats for the digital world.
Of course, banner ads and microsites might feature as well. But they might not. The question for all these formats is: do they fit the idea? And the question that needs to precede this one is: what is the idea? Until you've got that, you shouldn't be talking about formats at all. Because if there's one convention that isn't ever going to get tired and outmoded, it is the need for a good idea.
- John Owen, planning partner, Dare, john.owen@haymarket.com
QUICK TAKE - BEYOND BANNERS
- There are myriad alternatives to the tried-and-tested banner ad and microsite combinations. The most popular include widgets, video ads, homepage takeovers and expandable rich-media formats.
- Banner ads have been around since 1994. Hotwire was the first firm to sell the format and start providing click-through rate reports to its advertisers.
- Brands then started using banners to drive traffic to microsites, mini-websites to host target content for the duration of an campaign.
- Pixel advertising was short-lived - it charged by the number of pixels on a web page. It was popularised by The Million Dollar Homepage.
- The growth of social networks has led to brands embracing widgets, code embedded within a social networking site, blog or personal web page.
- Broadband uptake has prompted a surge in video ads. The pre-, mid- and post-roll video ad market is worth £3.9 million, compared to £277.6m for banner ads, says the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau).
- Other favourites are contextual ads, which pop up when a mouse rolls over a hyperlink in a site's text.
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