The power of rich media

By Rhia George, Marketing Communications Manager, Innity

Rich media is a powerful tool in online advertising, one that your clients shouldn’t be scared to use. It provides you with an opportunity to devise engaging, measurable and most importantly, effective ads for your customers while serving a wide variety of purposes such as direct response or brand storytelling. Next generation ads through IPTV, browser interaction and more will drive rich media going forward.  The possibilities are pretty much endless and will provide you with extraordinary results. If your ad budget is big enough and you have sufficient time, rich media is definitely something worth trying out especially if your product is the type that could benefit from being showcased or possesses an element of coolness.

Keeping this in mind, ads containing rich media are becoming more and more popular. Below are some trends in the same:

Increased customized dynamic ads

With marketers increasingly using the internet to deliver their messages, they will need to break through the clutter with unique, rich and relevant ad experiences that are engaging and actionable. This will enable marketers to create ad versioning and media buying efficiencies while immensely improving the effectiveness of the ad. In fact, in a study on the Ford 2009 Advantage Plan campaign, expandable rich media ads outperformed flash ads in total CTR by more than 300%

Moving beyond the click

Marketers are moving beyond the click and trying to understand what influence interactive and engaging ads have on their brand. Progressively more, actions carried out by users are becoming one of the key ways to measure the success of an ad campaign and to determine the best way to capture maximum ROI as opposed to using passive metrics.

Fascinating and engaging customers using interactive online video formats

There has been a growing focus on using interactive online videos to reach out to consumers.  According to eMarketer, video will become the third largest online ad format by 2014. Through this means, marketers are able to stir up the same emotional response that they are able to garner from TV ads. They are also able to do this with better measurability and targeting abilities than on TV.

Reaching consumers wherever they are with mobile advertising

With local advertising moving online and geo-targeting becoming more sophisticated, mobile is playing a key role as the link between mobile, social and local advertising coming together.  Mobile devices play a crucial role in driving customers towards local retailers and stores while providing enhanced targeting options. With almost everyone possessing a mobile phone, coming up with more interactive and engaging ad formats that can be demonstrated using a mobile phone will become imperative.