The worldwide Web may be an advertising gold mine, but has anybody figured out the best way to mine it? New York-based advertising agency KMGI and Internet developers Unicast seem to have at least found different ways of doing it.
The two companies have formed a cooperative marketing and sales alliance, which will include participation in one another’s marketing programs, and creative representation on each other’s Web sites and printed collateral.
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Using patented technologies with names like the Superstitial, WebPresentation, Webmercial and Mailmercial, another goal of both companies is to create a viable alternative to banner advertising.
”We believe this alliance will help create a critical mass for alternative forms of advertising on the Web,” said KMGI Senior Vice President Eric Kavanagh, “since we all know that banners simply aren’t generating the clicks or branding necessary for effective traction.”
The Superstitial is an Unicast-developed Internet commercial that has been used by companies such as American Express, Intel, Jack Daniels, Johnson & Johnson, Nike, and many others. When a user requests a certain Web page, the site alerts the Unicast server. Then when the Web page download is complete and the user’s modem is idle, the Superstitial downloads into the browser’s temporary memory. The download will halt if the user requests another page, and continue when a new page is loaded and the modem is idle again. The process continues until the commercial is completely downloaded and ready to play. When the user clicks to request a new page, the Superstitial plays as the new page downloads in background. Each Superstitial lasts no longer than 30 seconds, and includes moving images and sound.
WebPresentations and Webmercials are both KMGI innovations. Featuring full-screen flash animations with voice-overs, music tracks and audio effects, they can be run as “interstitials,” embedded in a Web-site, or as a gateway into a site. They can also be delivered within the window of an e-mail, as a Mailmercial. These programs are slightly longer than the Superstitial.
Ed Weisberg, president of Providence Web-development company BX.com agreed that banner advertisements are not necessarily the right approach to Web advertisements, but that the approaches of KMGI and Unicast are flawed as well.
”In regard to the concepts of KMGI, I don’t think the idea of trying to push commercials into the Web site will succeed,” he said. “Granted we have all been conditioned for commercials, from a lifetime of TV, but Web visitors do not want to be bothered. That is why banners are turning out to be such an inefficient medium.”
Unlike Weisberg, Eric Meier, and director of interactive services for Rhode Island’s largest advertising firm, RDW Group, said he thinks Internet ads are similar to televised ads.
”It’s just like TV,” he said, “where the right ad at the right time is going to make the difference. The online world is no different than the offline world. There are billboards that I ignore on buses.”
Meier said he doesn’t think that KMGI and Unicast’s advertisements are necessarily a welcome alternative to the common Internet advertising banner. He said that banners created with the Flash technology are becoming more popular, and are more effective than the technology advertised by KMGI and Unicast.
”People sort of have an intrusive level in this medium,” Meier said.
He said that the Java script trick that maximizes the browser in KMGI’s Webmercials doesn’t give a user a good feeling when he or she wants to exit the site, and pushes the user to the brink of that intrusive level. It makes them feel trapped, he said.
Kavanagh doesn’t see things this way.
”The beauty of a Webmercial is that it’s interactive,” he said. “By that I mean you can incorporate a “skip” button so that if someone doesn’t want to watch the ad, they don’t have to.”
While this might sound like something the advertiser wouldn’t like, said Kavanagh, the skip button is extremely valuable to the advertisers because it allows them to find out how effective or ineffective their Webmercial is through the number of skips made by users.
“Just imagine what this will mean for the future of advertising,” said Kavanagh.
He cited department store founder John Wanamaker, who said; “I know half of my advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don’t know which half.”
Now, said Kavanagh, advertisers WILL know which half.
