Report Predicts Banner Use to Decline

A new industry study predicts banner ads, which accounted for 52 percent of all
advertising dollars on the Internet in 1998, will decline in importance to
only 26 percent of Web advertising sales by 2001.

According to the eAdvertising Report, published by Web research firm eMarketer, ad dollars from banner
advertisements will migrate to strategic sponsorships, which claimed 40% of
the online advertising dollars placed in 1998.

Sponsorships will grow steadily to represent 58 percent of all online advertising
expenditures by 2001. Banners won’t disappear, but they will take on a less
important role, the report predicts.

The report, presented by Advertising Age, contains statistical
information aggregated from hundreds of research sources, eMarketer says.

“Savvy Web advertisers will deeply integrate themselves within the content
and services offered to targeted customers through exclusive site
sponsorships,” said Geoffrey Ramsey at eMarketer. “While conventional
thinking and inertia on the part of online
advertisers has held this trend back, increasingly companies are breaking out
of the banner box.”

Interestingly, the report indicates that by the year 2001, 10 percent of Web ad
dollars will be
placed in some format or technique that has not been conceived yet. This new
model will begin to emerge within the next 18 months and it will siphon off
ad dollars–primarily from banners and interstitials, the report says.

The eAdvertising Report, consisting of 102 pages and containing 145 charts,
is being marketed for $795.