Let's be honest. How many times when we work on an integrated or even on a purely digital campaign we think about online media executions since the very beginning? What's your answer? I would say never, but ok, let's go for a "very seldom". Weird but true (in 2009), banners always come at the end of the creative process. Usually we are out of time and out of money to produce them and we end up with executions that even when they are good, they could surely have been better, and in particular they could have been more integrated with the campaign idea.

This is why I loved the Tiger Woods rich media by Freestyle Interactive that was shared last #interactivemonday.

You can experience the banner on Bannerblog, make sure to click through and enjoy the show 'til the end.

It is a rare example of a banner that has been thought, scripted and filmed while the main campaign was created. Also I think they did a great work managing Tiger Woods. I can tell you out of personal experience that getting an athlete or a celebrity to act for you for a "banner" (!!) it’s an almost impossible task, even if you pay him a lot of money for the appearance!

Last but not least a question to you, to understand if I was wrong with the assumption I started this post with: do you think of online media since the beginning of the creative process or does it come at the end? I suspect that very often you are handed with an offline idea from the offline/traditional agency that you are asked to convert and make it work online... Anyway, I look forward to hear from you!

Nice interactive idea, but video quality could be better

Posted by: Alexander Bickov at August 1, 2009 08:46 AM

Nice campaign.

I think banners are truly unappreciated and underused, I mean, where else the interactivity can be used better than online and banners are big part of online advertising after all.

They should be treated equally to any print ad, but more than often they are not, which is a shame. This one is a prime example of creativity you can have with them. Hopefully not the last.

Posted by: Advertista at August 1, 2009 02:56 PM

Couldn't agree more - I instantly fell in love with this campaign for the execution and strategy put into it. I see a comment on the video quality needing to be better - but I think that's from someone that doesn't understand the limitations of creating banner ads online. Yes you can stream and what not, but if you're ad serving these campaigns, you're getting VERY expensive before you even go to market.

Like you though - we are very typically saddled to create great execution once the idea is already thought out - but we have clients now like Verisign who are allowing us to concept our creative at the same time we are building our media plan which allows us to think through not only the imagery but also the interaction, the sites it might be displayed on and more. All of this creates a much better end user experience, and more importantly to our clients - delivers better ROI. Nice article!

Posted by: Michael Hubbard at August 2, 2009 12:42 PM

Once I figure out the 'campaign mnemonic' is, I usually know what the banners will be like. The next step is to make it work within the 15kb-30kb size limit, because the media agency has already bought up the slots. Gah.

Posted by: Suffian at August 6, 2009 09:29 AM