Click on Through to the Other Side
By Amit Asaravala, Editor in Chief
When in January we first announced our plans to dedicate our 50th issue to advertising and marketing, we got a lot of funny looks. This is partly because June marks our 51st issue, not our 50th. And with click-through rates having dropped to an all-time low, people wondered why a magazine devoted to thriving technology would want to cover such a dying topic.
Some said the sales department bribed us to do it. Some said the radiation from our monitors had finally gotten to us. To be honest, I was a little scared myself. What if the skeptics were right? What if banner ads were about to fall into the same dark chasm as VRML, push, and the "I kiss you" guy?
Then, one afternoon, I found myself trying desperately to match the names and faces of the NSync boys in a Java-enabled ad from Herbal Essences. And it all made sense. Internet advertising was about to enter a renaissance period.
Mind you, neither NSync nor Herbal Essences really has anything to do with this renaissance, but the fact that the underlying technology from Enliven was engaging enough to make me spend the better part of two minutes thinking about a corporate boy band—and then to admit that in a published column—is worth examining (and I don't mean in therapy). You see, for the first time in years, I wasn't annoyed by a banner ad. I was looking at it. I was interacting with it.
So-called rich-media ads are not new, but are only now beginning to replace their dull counterparts.
