First Ever Banner Ad Revisited

Check out the world's first banner, which appeared on Hotwired.com in 1994. It's an ad for AT&T, the American version of Eircom (I think), and it's god-awful.

There's no rhyme, rhythm or purpose to this banner. For a start, the AT&T logo isn't mentioned anywhere, there's way too much colour, and it's all done on a black background. Also, the prescient "You Will" is quite ironic nowadays, in the sense that nobody clicks on banners.

But back in the day, this would have been clicked on a lot, probably because nobody had seen anything like it. Today of course, we've got Flash, video and interactive banner advertising. And banner ads are now seen as an integral branding tool in the marketing mix.

Comments

[Johnny]

What an awful banner!