JenSense

AdSense began beta testing animated AdSense image ads earlier this month to complement the static image ads they had already offered. And now Vibrant Media is following suit by offering IntelliTXT Plus, according to a ClickZ article published Wednesday.

IntelliTXT Plus recently began beta testing for a release in the first quarter of 2005. will work in the same way the regular IntelliTXT does. The page will appear with double underlined keywords, except when one does a mouse-over, instead of the usual IntelliTXT text ad appearing, an image would appear alongside the text.

Potential applications of IntelliTXT Plus are adding a company logo for a branding effect, or showing the image of a product alongside the text offer, for a direct-response campaign.

While the image option that IntelliTXT is currently offering appears to be more discreet than the entire box filled with an image ad, IntelliTXT will be one to keep an eye on for trend and marketing purposes. Vibrant Media could very easily continue to go the image ad route by offering full image ads in their pop-up tool-tip box, as opposed to the currently beta testing text accompanied by a product image or logo.

What is most significant, however, is the trend that the resurgence of image ads bring. It is interesting to note the trend swing so quickly from image ads to text ads with the launch of Google AdSense. But now it seems to be tentatively heading back to image ads once again, as a sideline to the currently offered text ads. Perhaps old school execs are adamant on image ads, which is starting the swing back towards images. Or perhaps there are other reasons behind this new image ad trend. Ideas?