I frequently visit the website CollegeHumor.com to view funny videos and read up on pop-culture.  College Humor regularly utilizes skins to help their clients advertise their products/services.  Below are screen shots:

This form of marketing is not cheap, but it is very effective, especially for larger scale product launches.  Skin marketing and advertising breaks through banner blindness, but not in every situation.  The above example is probably not as effective as a rich media campaign might be - as college humor regularly posts videos and articles about Super Mario, so users might overlook this skin as it could be considered part of the sites content.  When creating a skin marketing campaign its important to consider the following:

• Develop a skin that is contrary to the site you are “skinning”.  If the content of your skin blends in with the site, it looks like its part of the site, and users become “banner blind”.
• The skin should include an attractive female(s).
• The skin should have a strong call to action: “Click here now, click here, try for free, free trial, limited time offer”
• Take into consideration demographic and age targeting.  Super Mario Smahs brothers appearing on College Humor is appropriate, but the skin is not effective.

If your business is interested in advertising on highly trafficked websites and you would like to create a skin to break through “banner blindness”.  Please call us at 312-281-8931 or email support@bannerblindness.com to learn more.

Savy online marketers are realizing that paying for skins on highly trafficked sites is one of the best ways to break through Banner Blindness. PerezHilton.com was featuring a skin by NBC’s new television show Lipstick Jungle (looks like another Sex In The City Show). Below is another website (CollegeHumor.com - owned by IACI) that regularly features skins, but I was unable to capture an example.

So how can custom skins break through banner blindness and help your business achieve dramatic online marketing results:

• Make sure the price of the skin is a low priced CPM, don’t just pay to have it up there for a week. Make sure you are being billed anywhere from .05 - .25 cents per CPM. Of course, this rate will vary with the website and whether or not it corresponds with the topic of what you are advertising. For the Perez Hilton example above, I’m sure NBC had to pay a pretty penny to get the customized skin - but the skin correlates with the targeted user demographic that Perez Hilton attracts.
• Skins should have a strong call to action
• Skins should feature something shocking or attention getting
• Skins rarely involve direct response marketing - most of the examples I have seen have been for new television shows
• Skins should practice the principle: Less is more
• If you are advertising a site, be sure to use analytics and track how many type-ins or clicks you generated

If you are interested in having a Skin developed to use on a highly trafficked site - please contact Banner Blindness to see examples of skins we have designed in the past and how they might enhance your online marketing strategy.