April 11, 2006

Our media strategies editor suggests that all media planned and placed should now be rich media.

When the very earliest advertising appeared online back in 1993 on proprietary services like Prodigy and CompuServe, no one took much notice at all. Most of the advertising world didn't know what "online" even meant.

Standardized banners and impressions as the 'atom' of the online ad universe were still on the horizon. At this time there weren't very many people online. And if you were online, it was undoubtedly via a dial-up connection. The only thing that dictated the speed of your access to the web was the kind of modem you were using-- 2400, 9600 or 14,000 baud rate.

The content to be found on the web continued to grow vast and wide. But the data transfer speeds that dial-up provided limited the formats that this content could be served in. The graphically rich environment that much of the web now has to offer could not be engaged regularly and perennially without a larger pipe through which this data was being transferred.

Broadband's adoption has irrevocably changed the online landscape from one of static or slow moving images to one of near-TV like engagement. Broadband has let people watch TV or listen to the radio and still look things up online at any time-- at a moment's notice, a friend can call (because the line isn't tied up on dial-up) and ask you to look something up online and you can do it, because your computer is always on and it is always connected to the internet.

And with applications like Skype, I can actually have a friend call me over the internet.

Why rich media is the only media
According to @plan, there are more than 105 million people ages 18-plus in the United States that access the web over a broadband connection. eMarketer estimates that by the end of 2008 there will be more than 157 million people in the United States accessing the web via broadband.

There are now enough people online, with the web coming to them with heavy loads of data, to enable meaningful experiences. Although there are certainly plenty of people out there with old computers and AOL dial-up, that audience is slowly dissolving. Planning media with that audience as your primary tenor and thrust is like designing long-distance transportation based on a rail system.

What this means for marketers
Individuals are seizing more and more control over their lives (to a certain degree, anyway) and in no way is that more apparent than in the way they use media.

The internet is not only becoming the hub around which all other media are connected to by the spokes of an individual's use; it is also becoming a primary means of access to high quality video content. AOL's In2TV, which has classic TV programming like "Welcome Back Kotter" and "Alice"; enabling users to watch TV online, and Heavy.com, which has original video content targeted to males 18 to 34, are signs that large audiences have arrived to the web, via broadband, for serious media engagement.

Broadband means that "engagement branding" advertising can be used to marketing's end. Broadband means that people can now be "always on," enabling marketers to double-up their media communications, running an ad in one medium that leads an individual into another medium, namely, the web.

But what this also means is that the creative advertisers run should be commensurate for the media being consumed. Flat GIFs or animated HTML is not that. Marketers should be putting their best creative foot forward, not as something unique, but as something that is de rigueur.

The premiums often associated with what is called rich media will have to eventually go away. The bandwidth argument no longer really holds. The real cost differential between rich media and other online ads is negligible as far as how much it really costs for sites to allow for it-- unless of course the site is paying one of the rich media platform ad serving providers, which is another issue. If you are providing a better experience for users, even if it is an advertising experience, users will have… a better experience! And this can only reflect positively on the site, as well as the advertiser.