To be honest, I've got Web Banner Design Blog Blues today.
It's Monday. One day, four more to go. Everyone has got their noses stuck to their computer screens. Music vaguely sounds from someone's speakers. Six sentences and I haven't said anything relevant about we banners. Seven sentences and I feel I have to say something on the matter or it would be rude to waste your time with my digressions.
Ever since I began writing about web banners and other Bannerhero.com products, I've learned a lot, not only about what we do or the business field we do it for. I've chosen topics that concern me and found the links with web banners, social profile page designs and such. It's been a long way, but there's a longer way to go.
I think today it's time to stop and ponder a little about a massive marketing tool that's been with us for a while now.
1. Futuristic Nostalgia
I recently watched Donnie Darko (for the millionth time, I guess), one of my favorite films of all times. It's odd, but half of the movie is not... uh... within the movie, but in the website.
One of the things that really caught my eye was that the film site emulates old GIF animated banners in some of the contents (mostly, Flash-made HTML web page emulations from a fictional online newspaper). Can you believe it made me feel a bit nostalgic?
I still cannot believe we're about to begin a new decade. I was eighteen years old, dreaming of a future not different from Japan nowadays. I was eighteen, my hair was dyied jet black and I wore combat boots to school. I refuse to believe I've changed that much (though the mirror proves me wrong all the time). But what made me wonder was: I felt nostalgic when I saw a web banner. That was probably one of my first online reminiscence in almost fifteen years!
Web banners have gone a long way, yet they've become kind of uniform throughout the years. Could it be that web banners and online marketing will be integrated to our memories as some TV ads and posters have?
2. On the Subject of Contents
There's still loads of "magical thinking" concerning the production of contents. The success of SEO-oriented campaigns made our heads turn. We've seen the cases of newspapers that have multiplied their viewers by using Search Engine Optimization.
In the end, SEO is a tool. It won't replace research, it won't replace the principles of journalism. It must never be used instead of content quality and it should always be meant to create participation and communities around the sites, products and services we're trying to promote.
It's kind of naive to bet all of your money on one horse. Just like those books that list tons of pre-made slogan ideas cannot replace a creative process, web contents can never be made based on formulas. We human beings are unpredictable.
3. Update. Now. Time's up
Yes: I've played Simon, I had lots of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - related merchandise, spent a hefty portion of my youth at the Arcade playing videogames and had fancy Reebok Pump snearkers (Though I was never good at sports...)
Did these things helped me to be here and now? To be honest, I've got no clue. It's the kind of outcome you cannot predict because past, present and future in one's life are crammed together and it's kind of hard to see it from the inside, the now.
People feel the same about old ads. They were probably great ideas then, when hopes were high and brains were strained from massive brainstorming. Will they help you attain your marketing goals? Will they take you from A to B?
Sometimes, the easiest way is to close gaps and connect dots. Renew your web ad campaign trying to stay closer to your goals than to your original idea.
4. On The Subject of Banners that Sound Every Time You Run the Pointer Through Them
Who the Hell thought that it was a good idea? Ugh...
5. Pop-Ups
I know that, sometimes, displaying a new window in order to access new content is helpful. It goes well with the way most of our Operative Systems work. New windows spare us from scrolling further down or up, wasting time as we look for a wee bit of information. I find that kind of pop-up window to be useful, desireable even.
However, I think it is a lack of respect to have pop-up windows that pretty much attack the viewer with unwanted content, malware, spreads that take entire windows and demand personal information, with Java scripts that block the site until we click on those nasty things.
We FLEE from people with megaphones, we stay away from park mimes, I personally dislike people wearing chicken costumes in front of restaurants and avoid raising my voice whenever I'm having an argument with someone. Why do people still think that being all over the place is the same as being right?
Ah... so much better now. Back on track and ready to post new contents about banner design the next time.
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