Andrew Nimick - Technology consultant Andrew is an independent technology consultant whose focus is what technology can do for business and finding the best tools for the job.

I came across a very interesting and relevant article this morning, about online advertising. Advertising in all its forms has always held an interest for me. Comes of having a brother in the business, my sons and I are the world's worst ad critics. A previous role I held meant I learned a great deal about online (digital) advertising. I learned a lot about what works and what utter horror people are capable of making to place online as ads. One of the things we had to seek to do was protect the client's (a publisher) quality, we had to ensure their content was not dragged down by bad ads. What they considered bad ads was not quite what Phillip W Sawyer is referring to in his article though – he is more concerned with the effectiveness.
He talks about some important aspects of online advertising and one which has always struck me. Why do advertisers try to use print ads online? They don't work, they look wrong and they are not effective. It's a different medium. You would not use a print ad on the TV and the web is closer to that experience than it is to print in respect of attention of the viewer. An ad has a very short time to grab the viewers' attention, which means the ad needs to be produced to work within the medium. If it is and follows Philip's guidelines, it will be far more effective than something transferred from print. And remember you can measure that effectiveness unlike print. So if you are advertising online it might be a good time to take stock and ask if your agency is really providing or are you hamstringing what they could do because you are trying to reuse what you have for print.

Click here to read the full article on Advertising Age.

editor's note: All ads on SunLive are custom made for web use.