It was only when animated ads appeared that the electrodes registered a response. Other findings further cloud the picture. The work at Stanford, looking at how viewers digested online newspaper sites, found that people's eyes first went to text and ignored graphics and ads. But Internet readers eventually looked at 45 percent of the banner ads, settling on them for an average of one second. Internet advertising executives insist that banner ads are effective and dismiss the second-guessing.
Internet advertising works.
This is a new medium, and everybody has held this to a standard that's unattainable. But others say much current Internet advertising is failing to reach consumers. That is prompting advertisers to try new tools such as rich media, which bring motion picture attributes to computer ads, and the pop-up ads known as interstitials. That means looking for something that reaches people more forcefully than a banner ad, said Richard Hopple, chairman and CEO of Unicast Communications. The 20-second ads, already in use by companies like Absolut Vodka and Taco Bell, have a highly produced quality nearing that of television commercials.