[joblessjunkie]

I suspect this is all about novelty.

Users haven't seen an ad like this one a thousand times before. Some might not even think this is an ad. Some will be curious enough to actually click.

The MS Paint banner ad is not inherently more effective. If every banner ad on the internet was hand-drawn in MS Paint in 5 minutes, the joke would quickly grow old, and the CTR would vanish.

[rlpb]

He also looked only at CTR and not CPA. The sort of people who click (due to the novelty) may not be the sort of people he can convert. His overall CPA may well be lower with the other ad.

[pbhjpbhj]

Yes. It's your basic revenue vs. profit error reworked. CTR is a poor measure of effectiveness - a lower ctr can be better on ppc if you're converting better.

[gghh]

I agree on the relevance of the novelty factor. It also came to my mind that this kind of childish MS Paint graphics are becoming somehow pop-culture, a meta-internet-meme if you want. Yesterday I spent half an hour on Christopher Poole's http://canv.as/ (just because I ain't brave enough to go to 4chan) and noticed a lot of these graphics; after some time lurking, I started considering them kinda cool. It's like... well, a brand.