BROADBAND ADVERTISING

Check out this site for an exciting interactive broadband advertisement Nike, Whatever! - An ad campaign that starts as a TV commercial and ends in a Web site. It takes over your computer's desktop and forces you to navigate in unconventional ways.

Now imagine the possibilities. What would the technology, the content and speed do, together! "Rich Media Broadband advertising" What is it? What will it be?

There’s plenty of talk about companies that develop and deliver broadband advertising or even "broadcast quality" ads for the Web. Ad agencies and technology developers are working fast and furious to prepare for demand for this kind of content. Broadband Internet access continues to gain momentum among consumers. Mergers and consolidations are being made in the high-speed Internet access providers industry to make broadband widely accessible...

Yes, the time to sit back and ponder the medium has passed and the bandwidth bottleneck is no longer an excuse for creating rich and effective form of advertising on the net.

The profile of a broadband user is very attractive to advertisers and marketers. According to Jupiter, more than 21 percent of broadband users have incomes over $100,000, and the average high-speed surfer is twice as likely to shop online as a dialup user. Broadband advertisements make more sense for what they enable marketers to do: supply enough information and entertainment to get viewers interested enough to lead to some kind of transaction.

"Advertainment", "Results-oriented", these are some of the definitions of rich media advertising. The term rich media is also used to describe any new technology that allows for either a more detailed advertising message to be presented, or for a higher level of interactivity than you might get in a standard gif banner advertisement- (Tom hespos, K2 Design.). These rich-media ads can include full motion video and audio just like watching an advertisement on television. It could also contain highly interactive content or animations.

What makes rich media advertising truly unique, and sets it apart from the GIF format, is its interactive nature. Instead of creating a one-way presentation like a television commercial, rich media ads invite the consumer to interact with the ad to gain additional information or insight into the advertiser's products or services. For example, a rich media ad from a car manufacturer might ask the consumer a few questions about their lifestyle, and then deliver information about a particular car model suited to the consumer's choices. Alternatively, a toy company might offer a simple game to show off their latest product. They could also choose to sell their product directly within the rich media ad.

Film, video, sound, and photography are all media that have existed for quite some time. Traditionally, advertisers have used them on television, radio, and in print to reach a wide audience. Only recently has Internet advertising come into its own.

The Broadband Internet environment now appears to be the place for national advertisers, particularly when it comes to brand recall and higher click rates. According to the initial results of the five-month long Rich Media II study, cosponsored by Intel Corp. and Excite@Home: Broadband rich media advertising when compared to similar categories has the potential to provide approximately 22 percent higher recall, approximately 35 percent increased propensity to click, and roughly the same appeal as standard banner ads. (Broadband Strikes Back-Seth Fineberg, Turbo Ads)

There are several players in this market who are playing an important role in building the broadband advertising arena. Among these companies the notable are SpinWay, which has technology to bring rich Television type ads to the web. Companies such as Veon specialize in development of rich media content but they also have a framework to measure the interactive of the user with the rich media content. Thus providing the advertisers and marketers with valuable data.