The consumer
Let's face it, the consumer wants everything, doesn't want to pay for it, and doesn't want to be annoyed in the process. The proliferation of banner advertising enabled by ad networks is not something they enjoy. In fact, if they actually knew who all of you were, they would start campaigns against you. Luckily, the consumer has started to get numbed-out by the whole banner experience anyway. There are just so many that they all blend into the background, which really, if you think about it, is doing none of us any good. We're still throwing a thousand pennies at the consumer hoping one gets lodged in their skin. Have you ever had someone throw a thousand pennies at you one at a time? Try it. It's really annoying. But eventually you just start to let them bounce off of you and go on about your business. That is the current state of banner advertising. Don't believe me? Name one banner ad that you didn't create that you remember. OK, now another, and another. Now, name some television commercials. Easy wasn't it?
The creative
Ah, crap, people like me. The copywriter and the creative director in me just wants to create something magical, something aesthetically pleasing that I can be proud of, puff up like a peacock and say, "I did that! Now all bow down to me and bask in my glory." Uh, yeah, that doesn't happen. However, it once did. You still see traditional creatives point to that 30-second work of art they created while sipping a martini at a bar, pointing to the screen in response to the question, "What do you do?"
My friends, colleagues, and everyone else who now hates me for pointing out that they now work in a business that slings droll banality at people all day in a bygone era of advertising -- those days are not coming back. There used to be real writers who were copywriters. They wrote books and articles, and not on advertising, but on life. They had the ability to make words that would move you, twist the subtle innuendoes and cascading eloquence until you cried. Have you ever cried at a Google AdSense ad?
The agency
Be it traditional or online, the agency knows the transition has reached the tipping point for online. Agency management loves the banner; it is probably one of their most profitable areas of online advertising. Creative agencies have long had the SEO and SEM programs stripped from them and put into the hands of specialists. Site creation is often done by someone else, and even if it's created by them, it's managed internally by the client. What a lot of online agencies are left with from a creative standpoint is the banner. Oh sure, they'll be able to sell them on an occasional microsite that does the client no good, but at least it shows well and gets the creatives busy on something they'll bitch about less. But between the creative, media planning and analytics, the banner is becoming the bread and butter baby of online agencies. The smart agencies, however, are now working on more strategic projects in the social media space. But agency management is going to ride the banner horse until it drops dead, and take all the money to the bank while doing it.
The client
The massive reduction in the pricing of display advertising, due to ad networks, is having profound effects. The most important of which is that display advertising is now in reach of the hundreds of thousands of small businesses across the country -- the clients without agencies. Much in the same way that Google is the conduit for these companies in SEM, they are now able to advertise with display advertising online in an effective, meaningful and cost effective manner.
Someone is going to create a banner-creation tool where clients can just log in, choose the background, upload their logos, type in some text and automatically -- poof! -- a banner ad: fully coded, animated and ready to go, with myriad options on ad networks to run it. It is the only way to remotely control the aesthetic for the hundreds of thousands of small businesses wishing to replicate their AdWords success in display creative.
Look, those businesses don't want to create ads that look like crap. They just cannot afford to work with the high cost of agencies. Let's start to give them the tools they need, shall we? If I have to deal with what's coming, I think I'm going back to traditional.
The industry
The industry lumbers on at its ever-accelerated pace. It does not care where the money is coming from, what format, what creative. Pretty or not, the industry is aesthetically neutral. It goes where it wants to. When all of this starts to stabilize in 20 years, will we be proud of what we have accomplished? What we have created? What have we foisted onto the public? Or will we be horrified?
I love this industry. I love the people in it, the eclectic group of misfits that now run real businesses, the ability to help shape the future of it, the energy that is always about the "new." Let's not forget that. Let's all work to create something meaningful for consumers. Let's create an ad format that will shape that future for the better -- one that benefits us all.
Sean X Cummings runs SXC Marketing, an advertising and marketing consultancy specializing in helping brands, agencies and vendors connect with their consumers more effectively.