 This article originally appeared in Digitrends, May, 2000.
Simulated Banner Interactivity. Creative or Crass? You've seen them. Banner ads with working input fields, drop-down menus, radio buttons, check boxes, scrolling windows and other mechanisms of the trade. They're rich media banners, offering a higher level of interactivity and intrigue. For instance, a banner that allows you to type in the name of your favorite musical artist, click, and presto -- you're transported to an e-commerce page where you can purchase every CD ever released by Miles Davis. But quite often, these "interactive" banners don't actually work as advertised. That's because they are really craftily designed simulations that feign interactivity. Lured by inviting check boxes that ask you to choose product features -- or input fields prompting you to enter a stock symbol, you're immediately whisked off to a static, generic page upon clicking on an input field -- or anywhere within the banner, for that matter. Tricky? Or smart banner design? Well, that depends. If the consumer lands on a page that doesn't pay off the promise of the banner, that's deceptive. Your prospective customer is likely to feel duped and taken advantage of. Yes, you got some poor sucker to click, but at what price? A banner like this is likely to turn off the customer, erode trust of the brand and create ill will toward the advertiser. Tricky banners like this are the hallmark of click-at-any-cost porno sites (from what I've heard). But simulated banner interactivity is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, simulated interactivity could be an extremely effective way to introduce consumers to your site, if executed with integrity. Simulated interactive banners are perfectly acceptable if they link consumers to a web page that clearly provides the information promised -- or allows him to actually employ the interactive feature simulated in the banner. The banner's simulated interactivity has merely dramatized actual interactivity that's readily available on the site. So, why resort to simulation in the first place? Why not just provide real functionality within the banner? Well, it might work that way if we all worked in an ideal world. But there are several reasons why actual interactivity within a banner may not be possible. For instance:
With banners spreading across the Web like Kudzu out of control, and average click-through rates hovering under 1%, simulated banners are just one more tool in the design team's arsenal to drive consumers to your site. Just make sure you do them right. Agree? Disagree? What do you think?
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