Page 216 - Electronic Commerce

Marketing on the Web

new product, suggest new uses for existing products, or describe specific improvements to
a product. Audiences in the exploration stage should receive messages that explain how a
product or service works and encourage switching to that brand. In the familiarity stage,
the advertising message should be persuasive—convincing customers to purchase specific
products or request that a salesperson call. Customers in the commitment stage should be
sent reminder messages. These ads should reinforce customers’ good feelings about the 191
brand and remind them to buy products or services. Companies generally do not target
ads at customers who are in the separation stage.
Most companies that launch electronic commerce initiatives already have advertising
programs in place. Online advertising should always be coordinated with existing
advertising efforts. For example, print ads should include the company’s URL. Banner ads
were the first advertising format to be used widely on the Web. Other online ad formats
include pop-up ads, pop-behind ads, interstitial ads, and active ads.

Banner Ads
The first widely used method of advertising on the Web was the placement of banner ads
on Web pages. A banner ad is a small rectangular object on a Web page that displays a
stationary or moving graphic and includes a link to the advertiser’s Web site. Banner ads
are versatile advertising vehicles—their graphic images can help increase awareness, and
users can click them to open the advertiser’s Web site and learn more about the product.
Thus, banner ads can serve both informative and persuasive functions.
Early banner ads used a simple graphic that loaded with the Web page and remained
on the page until the user moved to another page or closed the browser. Today, a variety
of technologies, including Shockwave, Java, or Flash, are used to make attention-grabbing
banner ads. These ads can be rotated so that each time the Web page is loaded into a
browser, the ad changes.
Although Web sites can create banner ads in any dimensions, advertisers decided
early in the life of electronic commerce that it would be easier to standardize the sizes.
The standard banner sizes that most Web sites have voluntarily agreed to use are called
interactive marketing unit (IMU) ad formats. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is a
not-for-profit organization that promotes the use of Internet advertising and encourages
effective Internet advertising. The IAB has established voluntary standards for IMUs. As
the Web grew, so did the creativity of Web advertisers. They were using an increasing
number of IMU ad formats, including pop-up ads, buttons, and ads that filled entire page
borders. By 2003, advertisers were using more than 15 different IMU ad formats and the
IAB decided to encourage its members to agree to use only four standard formats.
These formats are now called the universal ad package (UAP) and are the most common
formats used on the Web today. Many advertisers use these four standard formats because
they know that almost every Web site will be able to display their ads in those formats
properly. The UAP formats (and their IAB specifications) include the following:

1. Medium rectangle (300 250 pixels)
2. Rectangle (180 150 pixels)
3. Leaderboard (728 90 pixels)
4. Wide skyscraper (160 600 pixels)

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