By Jeremy Schlosberg

    For all the dollars spent on web advertising, there's been surprisingly little belief that online messages are even noticed. And there's been even less reason to believe that web ads affect brand awareness.
     The banner is dumb, right? Right.
     Well, here's a surprise.
     Market researcher Cyber Dialogue has a report out that presents  hard evidence that the web in fact is highly effective for creating and changing consumers' perceptions of a brand.  
      And it's becoming more effective as more people go on line and web advertisers improve at their craft.
    According to the report, 35 percent of all online adults state that online information caused some sort of brand impression change in 1999. That is up from 27 percent in 1998.
    In hard numbers, that’s 24.3 million people in 1999, up from 14.6 million in 1998—a 66 percent increase in one year of the number of people who report changing a brand impression as a result of online information.
     Among those who shop online, 42 percent report that online information caused a change in brand impression in 1999, and among those who have bought something online, the percentage is up to 45 percent.
    The conclusion is clear: As people get used to being online and get used to using the web for transactions, they are more and more likely to treat the information they find there seriously. 
    What consumers see on the web affects what they think of products and services.
    The report breaks changing brand impressions into categories. 
     Automobiles is the single category in which the highest percentage of online adults report having a brand impression changed because of online information (see chart). Behind the 17 percent for autos are airlines at 16 percent, household products at 10 percent, and investment firms also at 10 percent.
    Now the big question is: What exactly are online adults seeing on the web that causes a change in brand impressions?
     The answer is: a number of things. And not all of them are directly considered "advertising," even if the end result is precisely what advertising often seeks to do.
     First are comparison shopping sites. Of those who reported having a brand impression changed by something on the web, 66 percent said comparison shopping sites were either very or somewhat important in causing such a change. 
    Sixty-four percent said that information from a manufacturer’s site was either very or somewhat important, and 55 percent said that web sites featuring buyers’ opinions were either very or somewhat important. Fifty-one percent said the same thing about popular retail shopping sites (see chart).
    And 25 percent said that banner ads were very or somewhat important in changing brand impressions.
    More people considered comparison shopping sites very important—27 percent—than considered banner ads somewhat important, 25 percent.
    But consider this.  While many marketers seem ready to throw banners out the window entirely,  one in four people who had their brand impression changed on the web said that banner ads were at least somewhat important in changing that impression.
    The report goes further and looks at banner ad impact by category. In no category are banners considered very important by very many people—although 5 percent did report this in the health care category. But the "somewhat important" ranking is substantial. It means that the banner, while not solely responsible for swaying many people’s opinions, is definitely being considered. It’s an important part of the mix.
    In the insurance category, in fact, fully 40 percent of those who experienced a change in brand impression consider the banner ad to be at least somewhat important in this process.
    And in three other categories--banks, health care and household products--about one in three people with changed brand impressions in 1999 credit the banner ad as being at least somewhat important in creating this change.
    Perhaps this begins to explain just why the beleaguered banner ad simply won’t die. It actually works.
    One other thing the report highlights is the importance to web shoppers of recognized brand names.
     Seventy-eight percent of online shoppers said that familiar brands are either much more or somewhat more important online than offline. 
    And 75 percent of online shoppers said the familiar brand names are either a very crucial or somewhat crucial part of the decision to revisit an e-commerce site.

-Jeremy Schlosberg is the senior editor for new media.