Streaming Media As A Marketing Tool

If you haven’t heard of rich media advertising, you may want to start with our rich media primer. Rich media in general goes beyond HTML to provide the viewer with a fuller, more interactive experience with a web site or online advertisement. Flash, Java, DHTML, Shockwave, and more are all examples of current rich media technologies.

A less common, under-celebrated, and so far under-used aspect of rich media, is streaming audio and video. Like Flash or Java, streaming audio and video can be used either in an ad or on a web site.

Although the uses of streaming audio and video on a web site range from actual content to communication and online education, let’s focus on its uses for marketing. Streaming audio and video can be used to personify your company — interviews with key staff, product demonstrations, and even virtual office tours are all designed to make a company web site feel more approachable, rather than one-dimensional and lifeless. Care to see an example of this featuring yours truly? Head to our Online Newsroom.

As recent reports have shown, online advertising is beginning to show signs of being an effective branding vehicle. Television, the king of branding, reigns supreme because it enables advertisers to build an emotional bridge between product and consumer. Streaming audio and video is the Web’s current cousin to the TV commercial, and, in fact a company called Klipmart, with their Klip-Ad, is enabling sites to practically run TV-like commercials on web sites or in advertisements.

If you are considering an advertising campaign that uses streaming media creative, proceed with caution. First there’s the issue of bandwidth — satisfactory viewing of rich media typically requires considerable bandwidth. Streaming media is also still developing an acceptance in the online ad space and many web sites are not very good at running streaming media ads (despite what they say). It, like other forms of rich media, demands more time all around to make it work. Before committing to expensive production costs, discuss your creative plans thoroughly with the sites on which you plan to advertise. In this case, a knowledgeable sales rep AND a technical lead from the publisher is invaluable. Not only should they be able to answer questions readily, but they should also be able to help you tweak your creative to get the best results.

Questions to ask in advance include:

• What other advertisers have run similar campaigns?
• What were their results and what impeded the outcome?
• What kind of reporting can you offer with streaming media creative?
• How many additional days of lead-time will you need to test the ad before it can be placed into the rotation?
• Is there an additional fee for serving the ad?

   

Before investing in creating a streaming media advertisement or applying it to other areas on your site, don’t forget the golden rule of web marketing: test, test, test! Even if you think have a great TV commercial or interview, resist the temptation to put the entire portion online before testing it. You can begin by using Flash to show a portion of the file and then analyze what aspects of it the user responds best to. Testing is a good idea in any form of marketing, but especially with new technologies that are still feeling their way.

Related Links:

Real Networks
Apple Quicktime
Windows Media
Web Advertising - Making a Case for Branding
KlipMart

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