Traditional Companies Comprise Nine Out Of The Top 10 Branded Rich Media Advertisers.

Nielsen//NetRatings reports that traditional companies comprised nine out of the top 10 rich media advertisers in Q1 2002 (see Table 1). According to data from the Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance service, rich media ads, such as the ones employed through technologies from Unicast, Enliven, Bluestreak and Eyeblaster, are gaining popularity among traditional advertisers. These high-profile ads, which float or walk across Web pages, cost more than embedded creatives, such as banners and buttons, resulting in more selective placements for advertisers.

“Clutter continues to be one of online advertising’s challenges, with consumers drenched by a flood of ad impressions and elements on a daily basis,” said Charles Buchwalter, vice president of media research, NetRatings.

“Surfers face an average of three ads per page viewed, making message delivery tough for marketers.”

“In response, advertisers and publishers alike appear to be greeting the new rich media technologies as a breath of fresh air, with a majority of traditional companies embracing the formats and including it in their media buying strategy,” added Buchwalter.

Traditional companies are making smarter and more targeted ad placements with rich media technologies. The latest data on Eyeblaster ads show that 67 percent are “Highly Targeted” creatives, showing bias across multiple demographic categories (see Table 2). For example, a highly targeted ad may skew towards women of a certain income and age bracket. Seven percent of the ads were “Diversified” and showed little preference in any demographic category. In contrast, nearly half of all embedded online ads reached a diversified audience, with only 30 percent reaching a highly targeted profile.

“Early evidence indicates that advertisers employing some of the new rich media technologies are accomplishing the exact opposite of the ‘buckshot’ technique to online advertising that has saturated the industry over the years,” said Buchwalter. “Advertisers pay more money to target very specific demographics with an extremely large creative canvas, as opposed to bombing the Web with smaller branding banners and buttons.”

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