And dictionaries, currency exchanges and all you other useful free tools. You can now no more send me to the pit of your murky online lair somewhere miles below ‘the fold’ before I find the answer to my questions (another one there, Q&A sites, aha!).

Nope, no more. Now that Google has realised how many milliseconds you take away from me with your location based ads for girls in Leeds and belly tucks in Bradford. You will soon fall from your lofty perches unless you change your ways and make my life easier!

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html

It can only be a good thing (unless of course those ads are for Google?!)

Just over a week ago I attended the British Guild of Beer Writers dinner in London and put faces to the names of many bloggers and beery folk I’ve met through the internet over the last 6 months, spending a day rambling around London with some great people and seeing some new friends pick up well deserved awards.

At work we scooped a DMA award for the Best Online Display Advertising for our campaign for Republic, fighting off competition from some really fantastic campaigns, brands and agencies (you can see the best online display ads here on the link above)

Rick Harrison who works with me at AWA also scooped the top prize in the National Trust and Sunday Times photo competition for his shot of a walker descending a steep path in the Lake District. I’m deeply jealous of his new Nikon D90 but my claim to fame is that the winning shot was actually taken on my camera (albeit by Rick before he sold it to me!)

Golden Twit Award commendations for Real Ale Reviews: I'm a commended social media practitioner now I guess!

And to top it all off, I recently found out that my beer reviews blog, Real Ale Reviews, had won two commendations from the inaugural Golden Twit Awards organised by The Drum magazine.

The award makes the Real Ale Reviews team particularly proud because of the categories it is in: ‘Writing’ and ‘Information Service’. These nicely describe two of the pillars that the blog was built on – to help add to the great beer blogging and writing that is out there, but to also make beer reviews accessible to a wide audience and to provide useful information.

I’m hoping that the next few weeks and months will be just as exciting, although there’s a lot to live up to now!

The ad leads you to then sell your car, which is a nice way to get people interested in the banner ad but also ties in nicely with Auto Traders desired outcome. I quite like the way the robot man jumps up and turns just before the landing page appears – nice touch!

In fact since I took the video the landing page has changed to this, which improves the string of relevance a little with stronger calls to action on selling your car:

Landing page for Auto Trader's 'Draw Your Car' display ads

This is a nice little idea, but I’m going to have to be very biased in favour of my employers and point out that we’ve done something similar before. (I’ll let you be the judge of which you prefer!). These ads promoted Republic’s mix ‘n’ match promotional offers for men and women and showcased some clever use of the drawing API in ActionScript and external serving of product images into the banner.

With both ads I’d love to actually see the drawings that are input by online users. No doubt there’s been a few more salubrious designs and potentially some very nice artwork, but the cost of tracking this would probably undermine what arte both ultimately direct response campaigns.

Both these ads show just a little more of what we can do with the internet, and also highlight how much online advertising just doesn’t make use of a medium that offers not just an advertising platform, but the opportunity to revolutionise supply chains, business processes, customer interaction. These ads are only a tiny step that show break the mould of banner ads simply being ‘online wallpaper’ or outdoor ads on computer monitors. Whilst I’m sure there’s a role for that, it isn’t on my computer screen thanks, I’m ready for the next generation of ads that actually amke use of the technology we use every day.

By the way if you like the Republic ads you can see the whole portfolio on the AWA website. I think they’re bloomin’ brilliant, and the IDM thought so too!

AWA is the agency that I work for and they specialise in web development and digital marketing.

From what I can see Land Rover took over the MSN (UK) homepage today with an expandable format in the typical leaderboard position and a central above-the-fold MPU to complement it.

Rather than use a load of screengrabs or try to describe the ad, I’ll just show you it and you should see what I mean (this being the great little tool I found (courtesy of www.screenjelly.com).

So this ad has ‘wow’ factor, and rightly so. How many brands can take over MSN with such bold and exciting creative?

But beyond the spinning landscapes and fancy rich media, there is a strong emphasis on response, particularly to ‘book a test drive’.

There’s no doubt this media placement and the ad development were pricey (not to mention the rich media ad serving costs) but when Land Rover’s products costs what they do, and in times of not only economic recession but increased ‘green’ awareness and a backlash against ‘gas guzzlers’, there’s surely a need to wow and fascinate your audience. And, whilst doing so, also leading them towards conversion via the immediacy of the interweb.

It’s certainly one of the more interesting ads I’ve seen recently and one that’ll be having my brain whirring on overtime as I’m considering media options for upcoming campaigns.