A car for rich people promote with rich media. Excuse my silly joke, but this is actually what MediaPost points out today talking about a new online campaign Mercedes is about to launch in the US to promote its R-Class luxury vehicle.

The online agency which designed the ads is Critical Mass. They created a virtual avatar which enters the screen to delivered tailored sales pitch as a user clicks an ad. The innovative rich media will appear on Edmunds.com and ideally it will help generating a more engaging online experience. A micro-site will of course support the campaign.

I must say I'm always a little bit skeptical when I see things moving around my monitor but, of course, in this case things are different since the avatar shows up only if the user clicks on the ad.

According to Robert MacMillan of the Washington Post, users are not annoyed by floating ads (but he is). The journalist talked with a few publishers and advertisers who explained customers haven't complained about this form of rich media moving around the screen. Pop-up and pop-unders are perceived much worser they said.

I tend to think people hasn't complained over floating ads just because they haven't been asked the right question...

McDonald's is running a six weeks online campaign to promote its new Fruit & Walnut Salad and target African-American women. ClickZ reports the creativity is by ImagineThat which together with McD's multicultural marketing agency Burrell, developed a series of engaging rich media that include a quick and easy gaming mechanism.

The first results are pretty good despite the rather intrusive format the food chain has decided to use. In particular, McD is using the United Virtualities' Ooqa-Ooqa branded-browser takeover which replaces the page standard navigation with a McDonald's themed navigation. This format is exclusively running on Bet.com however, once again the only supported browser is Internet Explorer so I cannot see how this technology works :-(

rmg:connect Australia has developed an interesting campaign for Kellogg's Nutri-Grain. It' a rich media ad with an advergame inside. As Ashadi Hopper, creative director at rmg:connect, explained me, they have transformed a standard banner ad placement, which would normally give an advertiser maybe 30 seconds of exposure on a page and a rather static engagement with their audience, into a rich entertainment platform that keeps the audience engaged with the brand for three to five minutes at a time.
The game can also be played following this link while if you want to see the banner in action, visit Eyeblaster's showcase. Too bad it doesn't work if you have a Mac.

On Mediapost Joel Gehman (senior vice president of client services for Refinery) writes an interesting column about the role of rich media in online brand marketing.
Nowadays banners still hold a relevant position in media planning, but in the near future they will be abandoned giving space to higher interactivity, which means rich media will take the lead. As Gehman sees it, rich media create a great brand impacts, banners are no longer able to deliver. On the other side, in the online advertising world, search no doubt works to provide immediate results, that's why he suggests to spend online advertising budget on only two things: search and rich media.

I tend to agree with Gehman, I just would like to add rich media will prove successful if we keep them "simple" in the sense we don't make them too intrusive like, for example, floating ads are. Rich media can create excellent online experiences and deliver the brand messege, but if they become annoying than the negative effect affects the brand perception also.

In 2004 rich media advertising accounted for less than 10 percent of all online advertising. Despite the fact there is always a lot of talk about this solution and the growth of broadband Internet access, investments are still limited. But the situation is going to change soon. A new white paper by eMarketer Rich Media: At the Tipping Point expects revenues from rich media advertising to reach $2.2 billion by 2008 (in the United States). The paper, which is sponsored by Advertising.com, can be downloaded for free (opens .pdf).

Among the interesting stats the paper presents, I think the online advertising effectiveness should get particular attention. If compared to traditional banners, rich media usually obtain better click-through rates (look at page 7). Unfortunately, "better" is positive qualification in a comparison, but appears rather disappointing if you look at the rates from an higher perspective. According to Doubleclick, rich media accounted for an average 1.17 percent click-through rate in Q3 2004, which is surely "better" than the 0.20 percent of non rich media ads, but it's always a very low percentage. Sure, you'll tell me online advertising is also about branding, but yet, 1.17 still looks very low to me.

Eyeblaster has introduced the VideoStrip ad format, a teaser video within a banner unit that quietly grabs users' attention and enticing them to interact. Upon rollover or click, the video expands to its full size, remaining perfectly in sync as it fills a full-sized expanded panel. User interaction with the VideoStrip also triggers the audio within the ad.

PointRoll instead has announced the launch of FoldOver a new ad format positioned in the upper corner of a publisher's page. When a user initiates a mouse-over, the ad visually folds over the page, exposing close to a full-page ad. According to Pointroll's press release, the FoldOver has been already used with satisfaction by Audi in support of the A6 campaign.

Rich media ads are becoming more and more important in the marketing mix, as the new 44 customers acquired by Doubleclick's DART Motif confirms.

Kia Motors is launching a rich media campaign to promote its Kia Sportage SUV. Revolution reports the ads will run for a month on Autotrader, Fish4Cars and eBay. As it happened last year Kia is taking advantage of Eyeblaster's overlays, created by E3M Media.

The New York Times has redisigned its Automobile section in order to feature larger rich media ads. As an article on ClickZ reports, the new 336 x 280 unit appears on the lower right section of the homepage. The section's new look provides users with a better navigation experience and advertisers with more specific targeting means.

ClickZ reports Pointroll has introduced a new rich media video ad format. The new offering will allow easily incorporate their TV assets into the rich media provider's formats.

Jupiter Research has recently released a report entitled "The Growth of Online Video Advertising" which investigates the factors that are limiting the growth of this kind of solution.

A new campaign developed by iTraffic for British Airways will start on Tuesday on Yahoo! UK. DM Bulletin explains the campaign will use an overlay zip: when the user clicks on it, page content page content unzips drawing the viewer's eye to the promotional message. A preview of the ad can be seen here.

A couple of months ago, IAB issued the guidelines for rich media formats developed by the "Rich Media Task Force". Now IAB has called for a feedback from the industry, asking marketers, agencies and publishers to fill in a form and share their opinions. To learn more about the initiative, go on MediaPost.

On iMediaConnection the "showcase" is definitely my favourite section. Last week they featured an advertising quiz by Fuji . Developed by Sharpe Partners with Pointroll rich media technology, the ad helps users finding the right digital camera. Some people are enthusiastic about the solution, others believe the solution did not fully exploit the media potentials. Personally I don't like the layout while I like the idea of interactivity and the user experience they've tried to create.

Rich media, poor message

Rich media: what's next?

Tangozebra releases rich media plug-in

Rich media: don't become fashion-victims

Eventually the Rich Media Guidelines

Rich media wars coming on?

Broadband spurring the use of rich media

Rich media missing standards

Flash-based advertising: a devil's idea?

Rich media is growing and growing and growing and...

Rich media use will triple in 2004

It's rich media time (maybe)

Successful Pointroll

Reconsidering pop-ups

IAB looks for feedback on rich media

Eyeblaster goes big

Rich media always popular

Chrysler Deploys Interactive for Crossfire

Volvo picks Flashtalking

Rich media for MINI

How effective are rich media?

The Hulk promotion online

Size Matters

Online advertising has a bright future

Bigger is better

Online advertising: a nightmare?

The future of online advertising

Nike named Advertiser of the Year

Are looking for more cool interactive ideas? Check the archives