Digital Boomerang Singapore 

Rich media advertisements have recently found favour with traditional non-tech companies. Is this a sign that intrusive advertising can be pleasantly annoying?

Rich media advertisements are ads that splash, float or walk across a web page to get your attention. The sharp and turbulent decline of online advertising revenues has caused online media and interactive agencies to go ‘beyond the banner’ and into the center of the screen.

Their attention grabbing value and their ability to cut through the web clutter has gotten traditional companies excited about online advertising again. Nielsen//Netratings reported in May 2002 that these companies comprised 9 out of the top 10 rich media advertisers in the US in Q1 2002. Household names like Proctor & Gamble, Coca-Cola and General Motors clinched positions 4, 6 and 7, respectively. These three companies alone purchased some 120 million rich media impressions in Q1 2002.

Do the math. Millions of dollars are being invested into these rich media ads.

If you’re an advertiser, there’s no doubt you’ll find them effective. Surfers would have to be blind to miss these ads!

But are the surfers equally enthralled by these ads? Or do they find them overly intrusive and bordering on the line of annoyance advertising?

Insight Express released some interesting findings in April about online magazines. 32% of the 500 surveyed read magazines online. The other 68% preferred the print. 47% of this group disliked online magazines because of banner ads, pop-ups and general distractions.

What’s even more interesting is that 63% of the total base currently pay for print magazine subscriptions but 80% of that same base expect online magazines to be free.

The stage is set:

• Web surfers are not willing to pay for content just yet.
• Online content sites will still have to rely on advertising as their paymaster.
• Online advertising isn’t popular with web surfers.
• The more intrusive online ads are, the more annoying they become. The more surfers tend to favour print over online.

But the situation isn’t all bad. Even I have to admit some of these rich media advertisements are really quite entertaining. They can be a pleasant interruption to a rather tedious process of trawling through the net for content.

If you’re not convinced, check out these websites: www.eyeblaster.com, www.enliven.com and www.bluestreak.com

Some of these ads are so creative and wondrous, they inspire awe and remind us of how exhilarating the web can be.

The key lies in using rich media intelligently.

1. Never overdo a good thing. Use cookies and ad server settings to put a frequency cap on the ads. Frequency can improve rating points. But if the ads become a nuisance, they will erode your branding.
2. Ensure the rich media interruption delights instead of annoys. Like TV commercials, seek to entertain. If you’ve got the budget, conduct focus groups.
3. Use a combination of 468 banners and 120 tiles with scaled down but similar creatives to improve branding and recall. At the same time, offer the surfer a choice of viewing the rich media ad again by ‘mousing over’ your banner ads.
4. Give the ‘buckshot’ technique a miss. Target your rich media ads so it appeals to the right demographics. If you ads are tailored for your target audience, they will be more receptive to your interruption.

Most importantly, use your common sense and trust your advertising instincts. Intrusive interruptions can turn into pleasant diversions.

- First published on IT AsiaOne, This is IT

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