This is only one example of the diverse forms of banner ads that are commonly found online. Banner ads are the most common form of online advertising today. Yet, according to I-biznet, an e-Business Network Center, they have proven to be increasingly ineffective due to a syndrome called "Banner Blindness," where users who are too used to banners online, automatically skip the ads. The October 27 issue of the Seoul Economic Daily reported that this year"s online advertising market has shown a growth of only 25 percent, in contrast to online shopping malls and service portals that have shown robust growths of at least 100 percent.
In response, other forms of advertisements such as Big Banners (those that are noticeably much larger in size) or Sky Scrapers (long vertical advertisements covering the right side of the page) have been developed in an effort to capture the eyes of users online. However, such intentions have backfired, as they give the impression of being too aggressive and one-less a form of marketing than an encumbrance to netizens convenience. As Lee Sa-mi (English Language and Literature, 4) says, "I don"t think online ads are eye-catching. I rather find it a nuisance when the skip buttons to advertisements covering the whole screen are inconspicuous or unavailable. I"m only further encouraged to resist such ads.
Still various kinds of online advertising continue to develop, one of the most recent forms being Samsung?"ID10100," an advertising style that incorporates interactivity with the user to create a "digital story," designed to deliver the message of the company"s recent brand image "Hope by Digital, Digital Frontier" to netizens in their twenties, the largest age bracket accessing the Internet. "ID10100" is designed to approach its audience with a melancholy yet documentary-like story which appeals to the sensitivity of today"s?young netizens. The ad requires viewers to click their way through several scenes in order to see the whole story. According to Kim Soo-jin who was in the Internet Marketing team developing the ad, the team chose to add the interactive element to their online ad in order to combine advertising with entertainment and attract netizens interest in a more subtle manner. Samsung"s intention to reach its young audience is apparent in the name of this project, "10100" being the binary equivalent of "twenty."
So far, Samsung is satisfied with the project, and they have already released their fourth episode, this time with a theme on the diverse lifestyles of today"s twenty somethings. Feedback on the web boards of the "ID10100" site have, so far, showed positive responses. One netizen wrote, "This ad has an intimacy and seems to provide me with a space or a moment of my own when I am clicking through the story. It"s hard to imagine that "ID10100" is actually a form of advertisement."
Although online advertising has so far shown disappointing results in its performance in the online market, there is still much to anticipate in its evolution and growth. As I-biznet points out, "People never lose faith in the potential of online advertising, due to its ability to reach specified target groups and create more interactivity in comparison to offline forms of advertisement."