Jeff Lebowski is ... the Dude. Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper. Maecenas sed diam eget risus varius blandit sit amet non magna. Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor.
![The Big Lebowski (Limited Edition) [Blu-ray Book + Digital Copy]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512F90yEqdL._SL75_.jpg){kind=small}
Seen a lot of big bellies on the web lately - like the ad above? How about ads you might normally see running on low-ranked blogs, like for Snorg tees (also above), popping up on mainstream news sites? Feeling like your credit might be in trouble, even if it's not? I would have the same feeling too judging by how many time trashy appeals for credit score reports are showing up on high-quality news sources. (Note - I am not picking on these products. For all I know they might be good.)
This is just an observation since I don't have hard statistics, but it seems like a lot of the banner ads from quality Fortune 500 advertisers have vanished as the economy shrivels. This despite signs that online advertising is alive and well.
In some ways it feels like we're a time warp back to the early 2000s when mainstream brand marketers had yet to invest in digital advertising in a big way. That all ended mid-decade but now we're back in the dark ages for banners.
If ad revenues are up, so what's going on here? The investment may be shifting to higher ground.
Some will argue this is cyclical. Brand marketers will be back using banners once ad spending increases. But you can argue the opposite might be true depending on how long the economy remains in a recession.
Banner ads have a notoriously low ROI. They are good branding vehicles but terrible for direct response and they require a significant investment to really be successful. You need to blanket the web with them. I'm inclined to believe that as marketers look for ROI in these times they will find success through search ads, public relations, email marketing and some, but not all, social networking programs.
If they get comfortable with other tactics beyond display ads - and the ROI is proven - then it could spell even more trouble for media companies that depend on banners for the bulk of their revenues. Reduced investment increases inventory, reduces the prices (and quality) and creates a vicious cycle.
So will quality banners be back? Yes, but not at the rate of adoption we saw before the economy began to sink. The money will have moved by then into other areas.
The following is another excerpt from "Five Digital Trends to Watch," an Edelman Digital insights white paper that will be released on February 17.
Companies have done a decent-to-good job adapting to the new era of democratized media. For example, bloggers today are considered an important part of the ecosystem. The best in PR view them as a sounding board that can help shape or even re-shape strategies.
Unfortunately, some of what we’ve learned these last few years may need to be unlearned — or at least modified.
Where once journalists sat on one side, bloggers on the other, today all media is social and all social is media. Yet many, particularly in PR, still treat ordinary citizens, traditional journalism and branded content as distinct islands of media. Going forward, it’s best to see them as a contiguous archipelago.
Consider that in 2008 some 58 percent of newspapers featured some form of user-generated content on their sites, according to the Bivings Group. This is up from just 24 percent in 2007. The mix includes: user-generated photos (58 percent), homegrown video (18 percent) and articles (15 percent). Meanwhile, the number of newspaper sites that are allowing readers to comment on articles has more than doubled to 75 percent.
On the other side of the coin, we've seen time and again that social networks like Facebook, Friendfeed and Twitter are now essential sources of news and information for millions. This is particularly true around big events and breaking news.
The upshot is that today it's impossible to draw a line between social media and traditional media - it's all one. We need to take a bird’s-eye view of the entire landscape and conceptualize it in the broadest context when planning, executing and measuring
campaigns. Anything short and we're operating in a vacuum.
Young Urban Professional