Webisodes Reach Deeper for Your Audience.

Interesting read here from the Online Video Insider about the end of banner advertising.  I see good points raised, but in the end, count me a skeptic.  

In short, Chris Young argues that richer media is necessarily better media.  He writes,

Unlike ads, branded content engages people with good story-telling, while at the same time showing your product in action.  Rather than telling people the features of Product X, you get to illustrate authentically, without heavy sales spin, how Product X fits into a particular lifestyle.

Good points, but a stretch too far.  Story-telling does matter a great deal.  Most people, most of the time, learn, think and remember analogically not analytically.  We associate stories -- the narratives of our life -- not arguments and fact patterns.  However, there are trade offs to advertising with rich content.  Though costs associated with digital technologies continue to fall, creative talent and the development and production of good ideas are driven by human factors, by costly expensive human factors.

As a result, banners, text ads and a whole range of cheap and easy online advertising will be with us for some time.  Our favorite blogs may move toward multimedia, webisode advertising on the outer columns of our screen space.  Think of it as Times Square meeting you where you are, on the device you use.  Yet, the roadside billboards -- text and banner ads of an era where distance prevailed -- remain with us today.  One estimate shows that there are some 10,000 billboards along the roadways of Los Angeles alone.  

I'm all for rich media but don't by the hype.  Advertising, like so many other markets, has tremendous potential for segmentation on price and quality.