Editing Web banner (section)

==History==
The banner ad played a significant role in enabling the rapid development of paid advertising on the Internet.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Revisiting online banner advertising recall: An experimental study of the factors affecting banner recall in an Arab context|last1=Khattab|first1=Lina|last2=Mahrous|first2=Abeer A.|date=2016-11-01|journal=Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research|volume=9|issue=2|pages=237–249|language=en|doi=10.1386/jammr.9.2.237_1}}</ref>

The pioneer of online advertising was [[Prodigy (online service)|Prodigy]], a company owned by [[IBM]] and [[Sears]] at the time. Prodigy used online advertising first to promote Sears products in the 1980s, and then other advertisers, including [[AOL]], one of Prodigy's direct competitors. Prodigy was unable to capitalize on any of its first mover advantage in online advertising. The first clickable web ad (which later came to be known by the term "banner ad") was sold by [[Global Network Navigator]] (GNN) in 1993 to [[Heller Ehrman|Heller, Ehrman, White, & McAuliffe]], a now defunct law firm with a Silicon Valley office.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/wlg/907|title=O'Reilly Network Weblogs: SLAC Symposium on the Early Web|work=O'Reilly Media |first1=Tim |last1=O'Reilly |date= Nov 26, 2001 |url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011222071440/http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/wlg/907|archive-date=2001-12-22}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Heller-Ehrman-law-firm-to-dissolve-Friday-3193215.php |first1=Tom |last1=Abate |first2=Andrew S. |last2=Ross |title=Heller Ehrman law firm to dissolve Friday|work=SFGate|date=26 September 2008|url-status=live|archive-url=http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/20110707100313/http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-09-26/business/17158078_1_san-francisco-s-heller-ehrman-legal-industry-same-sex-marriages|archive-date=2011-07-07}}</ref> GNN was the first commercially supported web publication and one of the first commercial websites.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://gulib.georgetown.edu/newjour/g/msg00566.html |title=The Global Network Navigator (GNN) |date=19 Aug 1993 |first1=Brian |last1=Erwin |website=NewJour |publisher=Georgetown University Library |access-date=2012-05-18 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120322101651/http://gulib.georgetown.edu/newjour/g/msg00566.html |archive-date=2012-03-22 }}</ref>

For many years, [[HotWired]] was regarded as the inventor of the digital banner ad,<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Singel |first1=Ryan |title=Oct. 27, 1994: Web Gives Birth to Banner Ads |url=https://www.wired.com/2010/10/1027hotwired-banner-ads/ |magazine=Wired |access-date=8 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220120053017/https://www.wired.com/2010/10/1027hotwired-banner-ads/ |archive-date=20 January 2022 |date=27 October 2010 |quote=1994: Wired.com, then known as HotWired, invents the web banner ad. Go ahead, blame us ... the first HotWired banner ad was from AT&T, prophetically asking 'Have you ever clicked your mouse right here? You will.'}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=LaFrance |first1=Adrienne |title=The First-Ever Banner Ad on the Web: It was an advertisement for AT&T in 1994, and people clicked on it like crazy |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/the-first-ever-banner-ad-on-the-web/523728/ |website=The Atlantic |access-date=8 April 2022 |date=20 April 2017 |quote=The banner ad that’s widely described as the first ever was a little rectangle purchased by AT&T on HotWired.com in 1994. About 44 percent of the people who saw it actually clicked on it.}}</ref> and the first web site to sell banner ads in large quantities to a wide range of major corporate advertisers. Andrew Anker was HotWired's first CEO. [[Rick Boyce]], a former media buyer with San Francisco advertising agency Hal Riney & Partners, spearheaded the sales effort for the company.<ref>Reid, Robert H. (1997). ''Architects of the Web: 1,000 Days that Built the Future of Business''. John Wiley & Sons. Chapter Seven: 'Hotwired - Publishing on the Web' (pp 300-308) {{ISBN|0-471-17187-5}}</ref> HotWired coined the term "banner ad" and was the first company to provide click through rate reports to its customers. The first web banner sold by HotWired was paid for by [[AT&T Corp.]] and was put online on October 27, 1994.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://adage.com/digitalnext/post?article_id=139964 |title=Happy Birthday, Digital Advertising! - Advertising Age - DigitalNext |access-date=2011-01-19 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/20110707100313/http://adage.com/digitalnext/post?article_id=139964 |archive-date=2011-07-07 }} Happy Birthday, Digital Advertising!</ref> Another source also credits HotWired and October 1994, but has [[Coors Brewing Company|Coors]]' "[[Zima (drink)|Zima]]" campaign as the first web banner.<ref>Chapman, Merrill R., ''In search of stupidity: over 20 years of high-tech marketing disasters'' (2nd Edition), Apress, {{ISBN|1-59059-721-4}}</ref> In May 1994, [[Ken McCarthy]] mentored Boyce in his transition from traditional to online advertising and first introduced the concept of a clickable/trackable ad. He stated that he believed that only a direct response model&mdash;in which the return on investment of individual ads was measured&mdash;would prove sustainable over the long run for online advertising. In spite of this prediction, banner ads were valued and sold based on the number of impressions they generated.

However, [[Time Warner]]'s [[Pathfinder (website)]], which launched on October 24, 1994,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/24/business/the-media-business-time-inc-raises-its-multimedia-profile-with-an-internet-test.html|title=THE MEDIA BUSINESS; Time Inc. Raises Its Multimedia Profile With an Internet Test|first=Deirdre|last=Carmody|work=The New York Times |date=October 24, 1994|via=NYTimes.com}}</ref> the same week as HotWired, but three days earlier included banner ads.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=https://www.digitalriptide.org/person/walter-isaacson/|title=Riptide|website=Riptide}}</ref> [[Walter Isaacson]], then President of Time Inc. New Media,<ref name="auto"/> and the ''Columbia Journalism Review'',<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/time-inc-meredith.php|title=Who killed Time Inc.?|first=Howard R.|last=Gold|website=Columbia Journalism Review}}</ref> both credit [[Bruce Judson]], then General Manager of Time Inc. New Media, with inventing the concept of the banner ad. In an interview for Harvard's Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, on the history of the Internet, Isaacson discussed Judson's contribution, saying, "It really transformed everything. Immediately, Madison Avenue decided, 'Oh my God, we’ve got to understand this. We have to hire a lot of young people.' They would send us money. It was almost like you could look out of the Time-Life Building to Madison Avenue, and watch people walking with bags of money, to dump it on our desk, or [[Bruce Judson]]’s desk, to buy banner ads."<ref name="auto"/>

The first central [[ad server]] was released in July 1995 by Focalink Communications,<ref>[http://www.zinman.com/images/FocalinkPressRelease.JPG Hyperlink Advertising Explodes on the World Wide Web] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718154139/http://www.zinman.com/images/FocalinkPressRelease.JPG |date=2011-07-18 }}, company press release</ref> which enabled the management, targeting, and tracking of online ads. A local ad server quickly followed from NetGravity in January 1996.<ref>{{cite news|title=5 Tips To Reduce And Tackle HTML5 Banner Size|url=http://www.digitaland.tv/web/blog/5-tips-to-reduce-html5-banner-size/|access-date=16 July 2016|work=digitaland|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160713120710/http://www.digitaland.tv/web/blog/5-tips-to-reduce-html5-banner-size/|archive-date=13 July 2016}}</ref> The technology innovation of the ad server, together with the sale of online ads on an impression basis, fueled a dramatic rise in the proliferation of web advertising and provided the economic foundation for the web industry from the period of 1994 to 2000. The new online advertising model that emerged in the early years of the 21st century, introduced by [[GoTo.com]] (later [[Overture]], then [[Yahoo!]] and mass marketed by [[Google]]'s AdWords program), relies heavily on tracking ad response rather than impressions.