Putting aside for a moment the inherent limitation of choosing an optimal advertising medium from a usability viewpoint, this is dealing with embedded advertising on the predominantly text-based Internet*.

In this case we’re looking at views (rather than impressions), click through rates and, finally, sales as a measure of effectiveness. It seems fair in this case and a good way to quantify an advert’s success.

However the wonderfully unquantifiable brand awareness is completely lost in advertising like this (unless minimalist, text-only advertising is your brand’s image), and brand awareness is absolutely priceless.

The only adverts I can recall immediately are huge, visual, bold and controversial. They are emotive and they’re fantastic. I may not have clicked on them, bought anything because of them or even discussed them with anyone: but I sure remember them… and the brand behind them.

*For ‘predominantly text-based’ read blogs or the majority of corporate websites that don’t get it.