How Digital Execs Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Banner

The lowly, oft-derided banner ad is back in fashion. Call it pivoting from video.

BuzzFeed’s announcement earlier this week that it was going to start selling banner ads on its web site signals a shift that has taken place among some social networks and publishers. For years those companies have complained about banner ads, hated and frequently blocked by consumers. Instead the companies have focused on ways to attract some of the $79 billion that flows to TV advertising every year. That’s the driving force for Snap, Twitter and Facebook talking up their video-ad pitches and various publishers’ hamfisted announcements that they’re “pivoting to video.”