Re: CNET changes advertising...we should follow

From: Carmen Paulino <clpsf_at_sirius.com>
Date: Thu 01 Feb 2001 11:00:25 -0600

In context of Mediaweek.com's recent article, *CNET
Gives Web Ad Design A Makeover*, Ramon Ray suggested:
<<1) Put some ads up their that keep the user, in the
ad >>

CNet has not really come up with anything new. Enliven,
Unicast, Solbright, and a number of other companies,
including mine, have been offering these types of ads
for two or three years now. While the benefits and uses
are numerous and limited only by the imagination, the
drawbacks have been (a) broadband issues; (b)
production cost; (c) limited (though now growing)
number of ad publishers that accept these ads; (d) many
ad publishers charge high CPM's to display these types
of ads (I've seen $200 CPM); and (e) as this and other
discussion lists clearly illustrate, online marketers'
general dislike of rich media. We and other ad creative
agencies have been building the evolutionary groundwork
for progressive online advertising for years. We've
been waiting for telecom and other companies to deliver
promised broadband solutions, and hoping that
advertisers and marketers will go from lip service
about the *interactive* nature of the Internet to
actually using and supporting this concept. Rich media,
as CNet proposes, is the available technology.

As far back as 1998, we developed our X:Stream Action
(rich media) technology that pretty much fulfills
advertisers' wishes -- but, while it's available, we've
not officially launched it. The reason is that, even
with online marketers' collective lament and calls for
the next online advertising innovation -- to date, they
have not really been open to innovation. Innovators
with the proper financial backing to sustain low sales,
like Enliven and Unicast, have captured only a very
small percentage of total annual online advertising.
Enliven claims an average 15% Interactivity Rate (the
substitute for CTR). Just based on this, one would
think as CNet is no doubt anticipating, that
advertisers would jump at the prospects these types of
ads offer. But to date, it's not the case. Advertisers
don't want to pay the high cost even with the
innovative functions, user interactivity, branding,
e-Commerce, and return on investment that can be
achieved. For example, our expandable X:Stream Action:

(1) does not remove the user from the host site; (2)
can take any shape or form -- it can look like a banner
ad of any size or shape, or the technology can be used
to deliver content of any kind and of any amount/volume
within a Web page; (3) typical file size is 7K to 15K
for quick load; (4) as users interact with (immerse
themselves into) the X:Stream Action ad, content the
user chooses to see is delivered or streamed in the
same amount of time as it does on a regular Web site;
(5) the ad can deliver any amount of content the
advertiser desires (even an entire Web site or catalog,
which is why we say, *why wait for people to find you?
Take your site to the people.*); (6) the ad only has to
be trafficked once -- changes to the banner itself or
to content can be made on the fly, on all ad publisher
sites simultaneously and instantly (can be used for
numerous things, such as one-hour specials;
merchandise/product clearances, breakthrough news,
etc.); (7) dynamically delivers or stream stext,
graphics, video, audio, shopping cart, catalog,
downloads, etc.; (8) does not use ad-troublesome Java
(as so many rich media ads do) -- is created instead
with HTML, Flash, etc.; (9) only has to be purchased
once and can be reused; (10) facilitates co-op
advertising, other company ads within the ad itself,
product placements. Other uses are left to the
imagination and needs of the advertiser.

All of this was available back in 1998.

Carmen Paulino
Xaphon Interactive
email: cpaulino_at_xaphon.com
Visit us @ www.xaphon.com

Visionaries. Innovators. Futurists.





Received on Thu Feb 01 2001 - 11:00:25 CST