Rich Media
To keep you ahead of the competition!

The Naysayers

I will start by recognizing, just as some people thought that cell phones would never catch on, there are still naysayers who are quick to discount the strengths of rich media. Why? Because the download Time for dial-up users. Well here's a news flash for all you late adopters there's more broadband-users then dial-up users since early 2004

Although there are certainly plenty of people out there with old computers and AOL dial-up, that audience is quickly disappearing. Planning media with that audience as your primary tenor and thrust is like designing long-distance Communications based on the Morse code system.

 

How is online

The data suggest that a typical broadband user, is a head of household, married, wealthy white male between 25 and 44, who as 2.6 children. lives in a big city either on the West Coast or the Northeast and spends a great deal of time online, regularly purchases goods and services on the internet, sorts his finances out online, and is partial to accessing online audio and video content.

At the time I wrote this, comScore release, the data shows that broadband users account for 49% of all pages viewed on the Internet, and 44% of all online minutes consumed, proving that these heavier files rich media needs are not going to "scare users."

Now, granted, broadband users being responsible for nearly half of online media consumption is not the same as them being half of all the audience online. But it does indicate just who it is that is going to be more likely than not to experience marketing messages delivered via rich media

Now with that's out the way, we can move on.

Rich Media section.1

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The advertising formats are nearly as varied as the vehicles themselves:

 

• In-page ad vehicles (including standard, multi-panel, and expandable banners from the likes of Yahoo!, PointRoll, Klipmart and ClearGauge)
• Floating screen takeover ads (EyeBlaster, Shoshkeles, Unicast)
• The ubiquitous pop-out/up/over/under ads (with all flavors of vendors who can provide)
• Out-of-browser technologies such as ViewPoint (and Gator for that matter), which can extend the interactive experience beyond a user's browser and onto the desktop. In the case of ViewPoint, its distribution relationship with America Online and AOL Instant Messenger offers a unique opportunity to quickly reach a community of Web users who use the Internet daily for communications
• E-mail, which in itself can be a complete interactive experience without the user ever leaving the Inbox (Netomat).

With a seemingly endless supply of new delivery technologies, capabilities, and ad sizes, how does a marketer know which vehicle will be successful?

For me, it's about continuous education. Marketers need to be convinced this works. With the layoffs at the agency level, especially in the interactive group, they do not have the time or personnel to keep up, referring to ad agencies and marketers staying current with offerings from rich media companies.

 

Global Rich Media

I expect this trend of global rich media growth to continue in 2006 and well beyond, especially in Asia, In Korea, broadband penetration even in the home exceeds 70 percent after having been less than one percent even in 1995, but rich media is still in its early stages so this is a market that really bears watching.

Statistics on new web users in the United States have to plateau, but overseas usage still has a ways to go. As broadband usage continues to increase domestically, and new users come online overseas -- and with new wireless platforms proliferating -- I think that globalization will be a trend that anyone watching rich media will see.

On the most basic level we know that rich media garners a higher click-through than static GIF banners or plain text or HTML e-mails. We have the branding studies from Dynamic Logic and Millward Brown that indicate the powerful branding effects of rich media. But really we are just starting to scratch the surface. Some of the initiatives currently in development such as the multi-tracking kit from Macromedia, and some of the innovations being proposed by people at such companies as AdInterax will enable much richer data collection in the future.