http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2009/08/johnsons_baby_50_years.php
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2007/09/proanima_twirly.php
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2007/09/animal_perigoso_dangerous_animal.php
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2007/09/fantasy_interactive_job_interview.php

But as far as the choice you mentioned goes, I would be inclined to think that the ‘medium of sorts’ is where we’re going to find many brands choose. I believe that the healthiest and most pragmatic approaches online involve a good combination of paid and earned media. The earned stuff needs to be about innovation, utility, customer-service, conversations and downright awesome-ness, but it will always be underpinned by paid stuff to give the earned stuff really good kick-start.

Despite all the talk of the media revolution, I think many of the practices that exist in advertising and marketing are still very solid and useful for people working at the cutting edge. To borrow a pretty glib phrase, we don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I don’t deny that it is important to make money (and I like your example of the chuggers on the street) – but the question then is does creativity have a place in the whole ’social’ makeup of things? Do you like being approached by the chuggers? I doubt it. Similarly I don’t like banner ads. I’m much more inclined to notice something that speaks TO me rather than AT me. And that’s a choice brands need to make – or perhaps a happy medium of sorts.

http://www.tbglondon.com/work/creative-portfolio/

They have an MPU on there which I think is a good example of a pretty engaging banner ad. Essentially, their objective is to sign people up for direct debit. It was a massive success on that front. And you could say the same about chuggers on the street. People hate them but charities keep on using them because fundamentally, they get sign-ups and they work.

I’ve seen banner ads for cat food, laser eye surgery and mobile phones that, although they aren’t emotionally engaging, on a very marginal level they actually shift products. You might have 60m impressions with a conversion rate of 0.1% that translates into sales 4x what you spend on media. And although the number of people that actually look at or even click on the link is microscopic, it can be successful for the brand because there’s a return there. That kind of success shouldn’t really be ignored.

I think we have to be really careful not to make a case for the ‘end of display advertising’ because fundamentally, this stuff makes money and isn’t going to go away any time soon.