Click Here Now!

Have you noticed how banner ads have improved? Now much better than the pages they adorn, they wink and flash and cartoon at you in ways undreamt of. Shockwave was never so much an addition to your page, as an invitation to spend your dollars quick.

Inside the Web probably has the best selection, from new cars to old age care - it's all there for the cost of a single click. But the trouble was, nobody was clicking. So nowadays there are nearly always SUBMIT buttons, or SEARCH boxes or QUIZ buttons, all tempting you on to that first, fateful enquiry. "Where does Homer Simpson work?" or "In which city was "Cheers" set?" They're even learning how to beam local ones at you, so you get UK stuff if you're browsing from there.

The other day I saw what must be the creme de la creme...a cyber scratch-card. Honest!! There were four grey boxes, each with a $ sign, and an instruction to "Scratch the boxes while holding your left mouse button down!" This is creativity with a capital C, dudes! Believe me, it was very, very tempting to "scratch", even though we have a cast-iron rule never to respond to advertising - in any medium.

Think about it!! No more expensive TV ads! No more film sets, actors, tantrums, creative differences, lines of coke or anything! Just a mouse, a banner-making program, and a measure of imagination. If money can be made on the scale these ads indicate, then the web is here forever.

Very pleasing, and a huge improvement on the earlier, static little homilies..."Expect the best from a girl, because that's what you'll get." And "Phone this number for a Drug-Free America." (What???) And my favourite - a picture of a sperm - not swimming, cos they hadn't got round to movement then. A picture of a sperm, and an exhortation "It takes more than this to become a father."

Wrong. It takes exactly that. Ask Claire.

Footnote: Someone, somewhere, right now, will be typing out the Bible in HTML. Banners could include:

In the beginning was the Word - and the Word can be yours on 10 easy payments!! Click here or burn in everlasting damnation!! That one would work well in the USA.
And after He broke the bread, He took the Wine, and .... "Oddbins for all your wine requirements!! Rude staff, high prices, but carrier bags to die for!! Click here if you've got too much money!!!"

The possibilites are endless....swaddling clothes, assertiveness training, inheritance tax, carpentry (of course), Herod's Army Stormtrooper dolls (did you know, btw, that Action Men dolls are minus a penis? I imagine it's because, being Action Men, they would realistically have to have at least 8 inches, and that might frighten the young and impressionable.)

(We could go on for ever, mentioning Life Insurance, Birth Control, Video Cameras for your Big Day, and even Olive Oil, goddamit, but we'll stop and spare you!!)

Great idea though, innit? And you saw it here first.

Footnote: August 99 Today we saw the ultimate banner ad. It was on a porn directory site (yes - even with our elevated consciousness we do occasionally look to see what others are doing) and it displayed Human Reproduction. And not a cartoon. In, out, in, out... we needn't detain you with the details. That was one gun that was never gonna fire, if you get my drift.

Shocking. We looked at it for ages.