IMV21 : Online Advertising and Rich Media

The following is a transcript for IMV21 : Online Advertising and Rich Media. The original podcast is located here.

Announcer:

Welcome to the Internet Marketing Voodoo podcast brought to you by MindComet. And now, here's your host, Ted Murphy.

Ted Murphy:

Welcome to Internet Marketing Voodoo, Episode 21. I’m your host, Ted Murphy, and with me today is Gal Trifon, president and CEO of Eyeblaster. Welcome to the show today, Gal.

Gal Trifon:

Thank you very much, Ted.

Ted Murphy:

Gal, can you start off by telling our listeners a little bit about Eyeblaster and the products that you offer?

Gal Trifon:

Certainly. Eyeblaster is a global leader in integrated and usual marketing services and their chronologies. What we do is help marketers create, deliver, track and optimize online campaigns more easily and effectively. Really, at the front end of campaign management, we provide multiple opportunities, including rich media, management of search, display advertising and others, and we do so across multiple channels like online Web sites, gaming, mobile devices and more.

How we do so is control the full cycle of campaign management from the creation to the delivery of impressions, the tracking of performance and automatic optimization of delivery of campaigns. We do so with multiple ad formats that are supported by our platform, and we operate very globally with over 19 offices at this point in 13 countries.

Ted Murphy:

So, obviously, you guys are at the forefront of rich media, and that’s the topic of our show today. Can you tell me a little bit about how the rich media platform stands out alongside other types of campaigns and campaign management systems?

Gal Trifon:

Items that we usually emphasize is differentiating include innovation, integration and global presence. On the innovation front, Eyeblaster has always been known to introduce capabilities ahead of its competitors in the area of format. Capabilities are invented by us include the formats related to fresh and video advertising, data gathering and reporting.

On the performance by frequency; for example, integration of brand-effectiveness studies into the platform; innovation in the area of processes, creating self-serve rich media capabilities, ease of use in the area of approval and previewing of ads and certain information of QA’ing and quality assurance mechanisms. All this was invented by us in introducing the market before anyone else did.

Secondly, the level of integration that our platforms offer; in the area of ad formats, our platform always supported movie platform; that’s rather than being dedicated to a single-ad format. We incorporate all the parties involved; we hold the creative arm, the media agency and the publishers work together to deliver each campaign, each of them separately executing certain tasks, and all of them incorporated into the same process and has full visibility and control over it.

We also integrate multiple applications now. We’re moving toward integration of search capabilities with display advertising, allowing to improve the performance of both by integrating the data and performance, and we also integrate activities globally in a very unique manner. Eyeblaster is the only provider to operate globally with presence in North America, Europe and all over the Far East that helps marketers manage their campaigns globally.

Any global brand can now centralize their operations in a certain territory and know that the local presence of the Eyeblaster’s theme will help establish acceptance for the campaigns and service at the levels appropriate.

Ted Murphy:

So we’ve talked a little bit about Eyeblaster and your specific offerings, but let’s talk a little bit from a higher perspective here. How do rich media ads differ from jpegs or animated gifs. Everybody talks about the fact that banners, in their traditional sense, are no longer really effective. What are the types of trends that you’re seeing in the industry in terms of the types of advertising vehicles that marketers are using today?

Gal Trifon:

I think the objective of rich media for marketers that came through rich media to the online media for the first time related to two main areas; one is improvement of impact and attention to the advertising delivered, an area that was relatively weak in the early days of phone-line advertising with the formats being used. It was tough to notice the advertising. They were easy to ignore, and secondly, the area of engagement; once a user recognizes the advertising, the level of engagement, given the better quality of the content that is presented and the interactivity of the messages, allowing the user to do much more with the brand prior to choosing to go to the destination Web site.

Extending the Web site experience into the advertising, into the media plan, is a great value for the advertiser. If you just want to think about it mathematically, typically, an ad campaign design not in rich media will generate click rates and traffic dropping significantly below 1 percent, so, effectively, all your branding is being done on the destination Web site. Less than one user from every 1,000 users will end up being exposed to that branding message. If you extend this message into your media plan through the advertising, you’re greatly increasing the activity of your buy.

Ted Murphy:

We’re seeing a lot of stuff out there now with video integrated into advertising. How much are you seeing that impacting media plans now and are you actually seeing companies that are producing video specifically for their advertisements?

Gal Trifon:

First of all, in terms of the utilization of video, there is certainly a significant increase in how brutally video is utilizing multiple formats. We specifically run over 40 percent of our ads right now to include video in one way or another, either user-initiated, auto-initiated, appearing transitionally within video content or even within games, so there’s a significant trend there.

It’s obvious to us the assets exist. The content is well proven traditionally in TV that video does a great job describing a product and emotionally connecting with a consumer, so no surprise there; that as soon as the capability is there technically, marketers will do everything they can to utilize as much of it as possible.

In terms of creating video specifically for the Web, I think that migration, actually, at this point, is people overlaying interactivity over video more than the actual dedicated creation of video for the Web. Together with creation of online-only video for content comes a little bit of online video that is specifically used for advertising, so with more media companies, creating content is available exclusively online; you should expect brands to follow the same trend and invest in online-only advertising content as well.

Ted Murphy:

I know that there was some concerns initially when I started to see these types of rich-media ads in terms of the way that they were affecting maybe the performance of my computer or how fast the content was being downloaded from the site. What have you done and what have you seen being done in the industry to make those rich-media ads exist on a Web site and not really affect site performance?

Gal Trifon:

There was always, especially at times where computers were not as strong; capacity of storage was not as significant as it is right now, and connection speeds were lower. The emphasis on respecting the connection speed and the ability of the user to watch his content first was a priority. We were innovators in that we introduced concepts such as Polite Download that allows us to wait for the content to be fully loaded before presenting advertising and not really compromise the content in any degree. Still, at this point of time, we invest in allowing the user to control the level of download of content relative to the ad by exposing into a relatively light ad, originally based on some interaction from him, inviting more content to be downloaded and so on and so forth.

Even as far as video being user-initiated, right now, video is streamed; it’s not cached. The user can roll over an ad, expand it and only based on his interaction and choice to watch the video will video actually be downloaded in a situation where that’s really the focus of intention in any case.

Respondent:

I’ve had a lot of clients that have actually approached me, asking me questions about interstitials and what I though about interstitials. To me, they’re annoying. What’s your take?

Gal Trifon:

On interstitial, specifically, I think that at the time they were introduced, certainly were considered too intrusive. We were not significant promoters of this format, specifically. We were not known for certain formats, but in terms of interstitials and pop-ups, altogether, we stay away from these executions completely. I think that rich media had suffered from the perception created by this format all along.

I think what it does is actually completely the opposite. Pop-ups are specifically created clutter, intrusiveness, almost invaded the user’s computer; were then taken advantage of by adware companies that took you to the next level in terms of intrusiveness and violating the user’s privacy.

Rich media does the complete opposite. We sell upgrades, better advertising inventory, allows to use less of it to sponsor better content, so what you’re seeing is better content environments are cleaner with better quality content in balance with the advertising with less clutter, less ad formats appearing, less frequency offset, and we think that the ads themselves become more and more user-initiated by nature.

So the intention is to attract the user’s attention in a relatively conservative and simple manner, only then to engage with the user based on his existing improved level of interest, so a lot of education went into balancing much better between the advertiser’s need for attention and engagement and the user’s experience overall, and I think that both publishers and agencies, together with companies such as us; that they can measure role and leadership; keep this balance intact.

Ted Murphy:

From a media buyer’s perspective, what are some of the things that you think they should be looking for now when potentially purchasing some media on a Web site?

Gal Trifon:

I think the basic priorities hasn’t really changed much, even compared to the offline, while there are capabilities that they need to be aware of like interactivity and the specific targeting and frequency capabilities that exist online and do not exist anywhere else, but, in general, the same principles exist to make a media plan successful. Relevance is a top priority; make sure to target your audience where they should expect to see the relevant advertising with the appropriate message to the need that it’s trying to fulfill.

Reach and frequency; the media offers great tools to measure your reach and your overlap between Web sites, making the efficiency of the buy better and better by learning where your audience exists, and not necessarily duplicating the placements is an art by itself and one that is becoming easier online, and I think scalability too. Try and leverage the same assets as brutally as possible.

If you’re investing in a great asset creatively, knowing that you can distribute it more brutally across more Web sites, by then accepting a certain format, by applying to the lowest common denominator in terms of specifications and going farther into emerging media types like mobile and gaming will be really the future of media planning; is knowing where the users are, what is relevant to them at each point of time and how to best leverage in the most effective manner, the creative work that is being done.

Ted Murphy:

Well, certainly, Eyeblaster has worked on a lot of high-profile campaigns. Are there any campaigns in particular that stand out to you in terms of being creatively well executed with an effective purchase on the right type of media outlets?

Gal Trifon:

Well, I can’t have any of them stand out without making others feel they don’t, so there are really so many; there are practically thousands of designers and thousands of agencies developing ads right now. All of them, I think, are doing better and better job over time. The media had managed to finally attract the level of talent that it deserves based on the capabilities that are created right now.

What I think allows certain ads to stand out will be the effect utilizations of capabilities. Ads are synchronized; ads that deploy video effectively in a way that creates awareness for the video and encourages a more engagement with the user; ads that effectively expand applications that exist on the Web site into the ad and help the user learn more without having to choose to exit and continue to the environment and destination Web site. All help both the marketer and the user, and; therefore, are better work done.

Ted Murphy:

What are the top three things that you think our listeners should know about rich media and online advertising?

Gal Trifon:

The three things that come to mind, I’ll say, are impact, engagement and return on investment. These, I think, are the priorities for any marketers, wherever they are, online or offline, but I think these are specifically relevant when discussing online campaigns, given that I think online advertising and rich-media, specifically, helps lift impact, engagement and return on investment across the board.

Ted Murphy:

Well, Gal, I appreciate you coming on the show today. If our listeners want more information about Eyeblaster’s rich media platform, they can visit Eyeblaster.com, and, as always, if any of you have any questions, you can always call us toll-free at 1-866-206-4461.

Gal, it’s been a pleasure, and I hope we can have you back on the show when you guys unveil your next big technology.

Gal Trifon:

Absolutely. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Announcer:

For more information on this week's topic, visit http://www.InternetMarketingVoodoo.com. This podcast has been brought to you by MindComet, the Relationship Agency.

[End of Audio]

Marketing Resources
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