Why you DON'T want your advertising to stand out

A great quote about online advertising from Noah Brier on AdAge.com:

Banner blindness is a well-documented phenomenon, but little has been written about why people ignore the ads. My suspicion is that it's in large part due to the fact that they look like they don't belong on the page. When there's a big orange ad amongst the black and white content of the New York Times it's kind of like wearing a big sign that says, "Don't pay attention to me!"

This is absolutely true.  I see it all the time.  The advertisers who think about their ads -- who it's going to, where it's going on a page, what it should look like -- and design their creative around those parameters are way more successful.

For a campaign that ran for three-month periods the past couple years, one of my colleagues had the opportunity to design the ad creative.  It was a custom program, and the advertiser trusted us enough to assemble the right messaging and look for the leaderboards, rectangles and skyscrapers.  Since my colleague knew exactly where on the site the ad would run, plus knowing all the hot topics that get our site's audience excited, he selected a creative approach that meshed well with the location and audience desires.  The reward was an incredibly high 2.0% click through rate on the rectangle creative (that's for a static GIF, not any type of rich media!).

If advertisers and agencies spent the extra time to do serious creative planning for a campaign, they'd be able to boost the campaign's performance immediately.  That's why often you don't want to make your advertising stand out.  Integrate the message and content closely with the site, and you'll see a big payoff.