CNN is running a really great banner ad by Apple. Check it out, and make sure you have your sound turned on!
It might seem like a mistake to put “really great” and “banner ad” in the same sentence, but in truth there is a lot of work and thought that goes into them, at least the ones that are good. Many users on the CNN site might consider banner ad greatness on a measure of which ones annoy them the least, or in the case of Apple, which one might have made them laugh, distracted them for a moment, before they went back to their daily routine.
But for the people that work behind the scenes, the Apple banner registered as “great” on a whole different level.

“I’m not a Flash guy, but I can tell you that the pieces would have to come in under a certain file size (I think under 100K for most rich media like this – 30K or less in non-rich media situations). So, considering how impactful the ad is, that’s pretty impressive on the part of whoever built this ad.
Looking at the code on the page really quickly, it’s two separate embed commands, one for the top SWF, and the second for the side SWF – each of which I would assume has a piece of video embedded within it. How they are able to interact with each other by starting at the same time, however, I have no idea.”
Daryl Brewer, Engineering

“Well, the idea of having two banners communicate is not particularly new. People have been doing it for years. But this apple concept is pretty cool. What’s interesting is if you check the two ads out of context. The top ad has no sound whatsoever and the bottom ad does.
You can see a couple of browser pops, where the ads are speaking to each other, I assume with localConnect. The issue usually revolves around the communication aspect. Since all browsers behave differently, it used to be a crap shot on whether or not it would work. But they’ve gotten around it and it works pretty flawlessly.”
Hugh Elliott, Integrated Media

Thanks to Daryl Brew and Hugh Elliot for the analysis. I’ll never look at banner ads quite the same way again. It’s like watching a movie after you’ve gone to film school, or going to concert with an audio engineer.
Marta Strickland