This is a great video and very relevant to the world of online advertising.
How many moonwalking bears have you put into your rich media executions, only to see the interactions associated with them never exactly delivered as you had hoped? They are not always moonwalking bears, but I have seen my fair share of really amazing, compelling, engaging, interactive elements in a banner get ignored because of extraneous animation, graphics, copy, you name it.Plain and simple - users are not on the page to interact with your banner. If you can make sure whatever you are trying get them to interact with is apparent and not hidden, your campaign will go from meh to magnificent.
Show your call to action quicker - cut the copy down, remove frames from the animation and make it clear what you would like the user to do and what they will get for performing the action.
Mouseover for More sounds a lot less appetizing than Mouseover to take the quiz and to print a $5 coupon. Obviously I’m not a copywriter and you don’t need to rewrite the production brief, but clarity should not be a rarity for call to action copy.
I used to love the Where’s Waldo books when I was younger, but there is no better way to lose a potential user than hiding the call to action. It’s just not that much fun, nor is it very effective. All to often I see a button or some copy hidden away in a corner or camouflaged amongst crazy graphics that makes very little sense.
If you’ve got something as cool as a moonwalking bear, make sure you let the user know and don’t have them counting the number of basketball passes.
I had thought about making mention of QR Codes in my 2008 outlook post, but six seemed like random number of predictions.
Anyways, I just read a little article on MarketingVox talking about Google incorporating QR Codes into print ads, allowing for further measurability and quicker access to additional information for the consumer.
QR Codes are bar codes that store information (usually a website URL) and are accessible via a camera phone. They’ve been around since the mid-90s and have had some success in Asia and Western über-geek circles. The codes can be “read” from print or online. With over 50% of US cellphones having a camera phone, I would imagine we will see a rich media campaign utilizing QR Codes by the end of the year.
The QR Code to the right links to UnleashTheWonder.com.
I first heard about QR Codes during a session led by Aral Balkan at last year’s FITC Toronto. He talked about using QR Codes for SWX RPC much of it went over my head as I thought about the marketing possibilities of using a QR Code. Contests where the users collect information in the online and offline world leading them to a prize, a simple coupon made just for your cell phone that can be viewed simply by taking a quick picture of a rich media banner (or print) ad, or way to drive traffic and awareness of a mobile site by encouraging the user to snap and click.I’m still trying to wrap my head around the idea, but am excited to see what you (smart marketers) come up with and look forward to working with you.
Other cool things that I am excited about and expect to see this year:
new Papervision 3D ads (expect to 360° video, check this out and imagine the user/brand experience if done right)
live video (where it is actually relevant and apparent to the user)
and lots more, but I will get some folks upset if I mention it before it goes live!
UPDATE: I received an email from Roger, who manages a webzine all about QR Codes and two-dimensional bar codes: http://2d-code.co.uks. Very cool indeed!
I’m sure if you are in the advertising space and read various blogs, sites about cool ads, etc., you’ve probably already seen that Nissan Rogue had a nifty labyrinth-like branding campaign surrounding the new SUV launch. The TV spot (both 1 minute and 30 seconds) ran in some really high profile spaces, including a few large NBC viewings like the season premiere of Heroes, and a few episodes of the Office as well.
Nissan (and our friends at Tequila specifically) did a fantastic job of continuing or rather cohesively melding with the offline concept on their site with a few mini-site games, including a SUPERCOOL papervision 3d game that mimicked the TV spot fairly well. They built the whole thing in Flash with AS 3.0, using the red-hot papervision 3d technology (Ralph even gave them a little plug in their demo reel - cool beans ).
Many of you may not have know however, that Tequila took this whole thing a step farther, and put a Flash 9, AS 3.0 with papervision 3d technology game into an expandable ad. This, to me, is exciting for several reasons:
This is one of the first, perhaps the first, ads to run specifically targeted to AS 3.0/Flash 9 users. Because they were running with EyeWonder, we were able to let the sites rely on our authentication and really optimize the experience.
They were able, with little-to-no fuss, to retrofit a full game into an ad that was within site requirements using our component. They used the component start to finish and were able to put a very complex idea into an ad very quickly to meet their deadline.
With all the advertising on people doing 3d advertising, which is really just glorified video most of the time, this is a truly interactive 3d experience.
You can see the ad here (or click on the image above). Happy playing!
Note: I would be remiss to not point out here that there is a slight usability issue with mousing out of the unit while playing the game. However, given that this is an adaptation of their landing page game, I think they made the right choice in trying to maximize their audience by making the interaction a rollover instead of click to play. In terms of best practices, I would certainly recommend “pinning” the ad open once the user clicked to play, but that would have taken more time in terms of gaining site approval for such behavior.
Erin made a quick mention about one of EyeWonder’s newest offerings - SocialWonder, but I wanted to fill you in on this new feature and why I think it is such addition to your already rocking rich media initiatives.
So many of the ads we have the opportunity to work on incorporate such rewarding content that is entertaining, educational, and/or promotional. What better way to empower the user to become an evangelist for your brand than allowing them to showcase their affinity on their social networking, blog or personal web page.
SocialWonder allows for users to easily post a rich media widget to their page. Once the widget is on the user’s page, their friends can interact with the widget and you as the marketer get all great reporting metrics you are used to seeing through your standard rich media campaigns — not to mention the free publisher media impressions and a slightly different presentation via a user’s profile or webpage.
Not only is it easy for users to post directly to their page from the rich media ad, but this extensibility is extended to their friends. So not only can they interact with their friends widgets, but if the choose to they can post the widget on their personal social networking site. This can happen on over 20 of the top social networking sites or even copy and paste the code to their personal blog or website.
Click here or on the screenshot below to check out the demo:
While this is a proof of concept on what is possible, we are really excited to see how agencies and advertisers embrace this new technology and come up with ways to unleash the wonder through social networking.
Samsung with the help of Cheil USA is the first to test the waters with a campaign for one of the coolest new music phones, the Juke (I will post a link to their creative when I get the word internally). Several other groups have projects in the works, which will be sure to post for you to check out.
Got a campaign that may be right for SocialWonder? Ping your EyeWonder rep and let us know what you are thinking!
If you are curious, you can view the press release, and check out press coverage for SocialWonder from Adotas and ClickZ.
Ian Schafer has a great article in ClickZ today that speaks the plain and simple of truth of viral advertising. Ian talks about making sure the content is “good” to ensure users are not desensitized by viral overload.
What is “good” content?
I think it is compelling content - whether it be entertaining or educational.
EyeWonder offers a number of methods (IM, email, SMS) to encourage the viralibility of content. Of course if there isn’t good content (or any content in some cases, if you can believe it) to be sent along, the odds of this lifting the brand in some capacity are slim to none.
Here is one of my favorite rich media campaigns that incorporates a viral element that performed very well and I absolutely rock at it, well kinda. I call it UGDBD (user generated digital break dancing):
As you can see this banner does not only a great job of showcasing the iPod/audio jack in the new Nissan Sentra, but extends the rest of the campaign incorporating the dude (Mark Harowitz) from the ad in a fun and entertaining way. Not only do you get to show off your breakdancing skills sans cardboard mat, you can send your moves to your friends. Rewarding the user with something fun (and educational) and taking it a step further to allow them to pass it along.
This had some pretty impressive interaction rates and average time spent on panel, all the while maintaining a nicely branded environment for Nissan.
EyeWonder clients have started to unleash the wonder in our new self-promotional ad campaign for 2007. I think there are lots of cool things about these guys, but here they are in our famous metrolux webpage in case you haven’t seen them on any of the industry sites:
Recently iMedia Connection showcased this unit out of 65 Media and after seeing Joanna Peña-Bickley’s ON: Digital+Marketing blog, I figured we could at least show it off here. Click the pic below or this link to see Tony Hawk’s Flip Kickin’ Banner.
Not only does the banner do a great job of not pushing the 15/30 TV spot by utilizing existing game footage, it effectively showcases the Nail The Trick feature of Project 8 through this EyeWonder expandable video banner. 65 Media had the idea for the unique scrubbing technique that along with the trailer and screenshots truly empower skateboarding, gaming enthusiasts with loads of interactivity and content.
Got an off the wall idea you are looking to execute on your next rich media campaign? Let’s talk about it and see how we can help! UPDATE 04.10 : Skate and Annoy has blogged about the THP8 unit here. Here is a snippet of what they had to say:
An ad agency called EyeWonder has created some crazy banner ads for web pages that unfold and let interested parties fool around and learn about Tony Hawk’s Project 8 game without having to leave the page. You can do things like use your cursor to scrub through the super slow motion “Nail the Trick” sequences and view trailers and screen captures. It’s very well thought out use of web technology to draw in the viewer.
It’s always nice to hear feedback from the target audience of a particular campaign, but it’s even nicer to hear positive comments:) This is another example of how even users who typically look down on advertising (and the man) can see through their blinders to discover the value of the product/brand through richer media.
The popularity of synchronized units has really grown in the last year and we always happy when we have the opportunity to work on such an impressive execution. This will definitely make it to our showcase, but in the interest of showing ads that do not suck as soon as possible, I wanted to share this latest unit out of Atmosphere BBDO for Lay’s Pure Joy.
What I like most about this is how the user can interact with the banner and is rewarded with the out of banner experience. The coolest thing about this is it was completely built through our AdWonder Component. Kudos to Atmo for stepping it up a notch on every campaign. I can’t wait to see what else they come up with on future Lay’s and Cingular projects!
We are working on a portal to showcase the best of the synced units. I will add the link here when it is ready to go, so be on the lookout.
If you are interested in building a synced roadblock, check out this great article on the AdWonder Wiki about how to ensure a synchronized experience!
Fun fact: Since fries are called chips, chips are called crisps in the UK.
The codes can be “read” from print or online. With 
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