By Alok Pandey
Advertising practices have always been a driving factor in the growth of businesses but in the digital age, marketers strive to grip the eyeballs of netizens via different ads. Consumers get many ads but over the period of years, they have stopped noticing them because they want to filter out the obnoxious ads and are likely to get engaged with the ones of their interests. This is why rich media ads are playing a pivotal role in encouraging brands to make their exceptional online presence while accelerating their business growth as these are the best way to draw user attention towards a campaign.
Different ads come with meaning and purpose behind a campaign but a blend of rich media ads can really do wonders for the brands along with its 3R’s i.e- Reach, Recognition and Recall. This is because nowadays, rich media has been a proven force that drives consumer engagement and thus, incorporating it in marketing campaigns outperforms standard banner ads by 267%, as per eMarketer.
So, let’s discuss more rich media ads and how innovatively it levels up a brand that marketers have already started saying YES to it.
Sets brand apart with better visibility: A rich media campaign having storytelling content cordially strikes users because it narratively conveys the brand’s message by depicting a story that efficiently creates a recall value of a brand in users’ minds. This practice is beneficial for maximizing brand reach and awareness since it involves innovative and dynamic creatives that understand the users’ psychology which creates a recall for users that make them remember the brand and encourages them to engage with the campaign.
Reduce banner blindness: Banner blindness is a phenomenon where netizens unconsciously or consciously overlook banner-like information whereas rich media contributes to reducing banner blindness. It consists of the elements such as changing frames, sound effects, gamification etc that innovatively grab users’ eyeballs and are difficult to ignore. This results in effective branding and quality impressions as users spend time interacting with the innovation and story of the campaign.
Flexibility & Versatility in Ads: Rich media ads are versatile in nature and enable brands to advertise flexibly on a larger scale without limiting the ad space. This is because such ads are compatible with Javascript, HTML5, Java MRAID, CSS, SVG and many other related standard assets via which the ads easily get adjusted to users’ devices and screen size which results in a quality and hassle-free user experience.
Better & Multiple Metrics: Rich media ads are like a goldmine in providing marketers with useful user metrics since they can monitor the touchpoints where the user interacts the most and deliver insights like impressions, engagement rate, interaction time etc. Based on such analysis, a marketer can improvise and enhance the campaign while tapping into the right target audience. Such metrics via rich media are beneficial for campaign optimization and can also help in better understanding users’ choices and preferences.
Increases User Engagement: The name rich media automatically suggests the enriched media formats which include GIFs, podcasts, innovative images and videos, and others, which have now become an epicentre of user engagement. This is because rich media have proven to be the replica of TVCs which draws user attention towards a campaign; in fact, such ads in the form of playable ads also increase user engagement as users get a clue about the advertised brand before engaging.
Rich media ads have always been there in marketing practices but with the evolution in the ever-evolving digital landscape, it is creating a buzz with their more innovative elements and unique offerings that let the consumer stay at the campaign. These ad formats are revolutionizing the industry and will sooner take it by storm with their uniqueness and specialities that a user can not overlook and engage with the shown ad. That’s why marketers are attracted towards it and saying a big YES to such ads and brands have also started using it in their marketing practices.
The author is the vice president – sales and marketing, Xapads Media