Watch this home page morph into a banner ad

Interactive ad technology company Eyewonder have launched PageMorph™, a new advertising unit, which essentially morphs a publisher’s home page into a full page banner ad or landing page.

As a consumer clicks onto a homepage, a screenshot of the page begins to shrink and crumple away to reveal the banner ad behind. You can watch a demo of the ad unit here.

Viewpoint

Eyewonder claim publishers are looking for premium placements to sell to advertisers whilst keeping ad clutter on their home page to a minimum.  This format certainly fulfils that requirement.  From an advertiser’s perspective, it’s certainly eye-catching and engaging and I’m sure brands will enjoy the larger real estate to present brand messages.   The new ad units also return a higher than average total interaction time apparently which is something not to be scoffed at.

However,  I do think marketers need to strike a careful balance between capturing consumer attention and disrupting the online experience to such an extent that the consumer is virtually coerced into interacting with the ad campaign.  I also question what relevance a shrinking home page has unless you link it to the concept in the way BMW have done here, otherwise it’s just an eye-catching gimmmick.   I’m not saying this technology doesn’t have a role – in fact in some instances this could be extremely compelling -  I just think there are wider factors to consider beyond who can shout the loudest.