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Looking back at the first banner ad. Maybe. This site claims to have uncovered the first banner ad (sorry the picture of it is so lousy), which it says appeared on Hotwired on October 25, 1994. The advertiser? AT&T. Now, you’ll notice a slight bit of skepticism on my part here about the veracity of the claim, a legacy of my covering the dot-com boom back in the day, in which start-ups had a habit of erroneously claiming they were the first to perform various techno-acts. On the other hand, this particular banner—which is pretty awful even by the very low standards of that time—was probably close to first. As I recall, Hotwired launched banner campaigns from a number of advertisers more or less simultaneously and some of the others included Club Med and Volvo. Anyway, we'd love to hear from other online ad historians who may remember how the lowly banner ad began its obnoxious ascension. —Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

December 7, 2005 | Permalink

Comments

Just as annoying as the banner atop your site?

Posted by: | Dec 7, 2005 9:43:36 AM

You should get in touch with Jonathon Nelson at Organic; he was working with the Hotwired and Club Med folks at the time- Organic and Hotwired were pretty closely related back then, through Brian Behlendorf.

Posted by: Tim Howland | Dec 7, 2005 9:54:22 AM

2004? Do you mean 1994? I think banner ads have been around longer than a year.

Posted by: RP | Dec 7, 2005 9:56:20 AM

Doh!

You're right. I corrected it. Think of all the "click heres" we would have been spared if banner ads were only a year old.

Posted by: Catharine P. Taylor | Dec 7, 2005 10:00:14 AM

yes, the date, 1994; the site, hotwired; and the advertiser, AT&T, all ring a bell in terms of history of banner ads i recall reading

Posted by: Stuart Elliott | Dec 7, 2005 5:42:33 PM

Here's my research:

Banner advertising started on October 27, 1994, when Hotwired - the online version of Wired Magazine - launched. It is credited with being the first to bring advertising to the World Wide Web (WWW). Magazine executives never imagined the enormous impact that they were making when they signed up 14 advertisers for the online debut of Hotwired (Kaye & Medoff, 2001).

Footnote:
Kaye, Barbara K. and Medoff, Norman J. (2001). Just a Click Away: Advertising on the Internet. Allyn and Bacon, Needham Heights, MA. P. 6.

Posted by: K. Kozlen | Dec 9, 2005 12:42:17 PM

Greetings.

Back in the early-'80s, I worked as an art director at Cunningham & Walsh/San Francisco. We hired a young lad by the name of Rick Boyce in media – who later went to Hal Riney & Partners – and then at Wired Magazine.

I believe it was Rick who pioneered the concept of the banner ad.

Several years ago, I think it was Information Age Magazine that published a section on Rick, along with others, as being a key figure in the development of Internet marketing.

Last time I talked with Rick, he was a senior exec at Snowball.com – but I think he's moved from there (and it's my understanding Snowball.com is no more). I still think he's living in Marin County.

Hope this helps.

- C.

Posted by: Charlie Sweeny | Dec 11, 2005 8:40:43 PM

Might ask Veen about it, he was just waxing nostalgic about hotwired.

http://www.veen.com/jeff/archives/000903.html

Posted by: b | Jul 17, 2006 4:59:45 PM

Three of the first hotwired banner ads were Euro RSCG clients: Volvo, MCI and Club Med. Volvo is still a client of Euro RSCG's.

Posted by: George Gallate | Apr 22, 2009 11:48:49 AM

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