Before we get into the different products that we are having in online industry today i just wanted to start with what’s RICH MEDIA ??

To be straight forward , the media whose contents or display are rich are rich media Ads. Also any Ad which is more advanced than a basic image Ad are rich media Ads.

The name rich itself signifies it’s meaning !

All kind of Ads excluding image ad can be considered as rich media Ads , no matter it’s an expandable , floating , pop up , etc.

We will be touring all kind of products that are there in online world , right from the basic to the advanced product that we have today..

Click on the below link to know in detail about the products…

  1. STANDARD FLASH
  2. EXPANDABLE ADs
  3. ROLL-OVER ADs
  4. HTML BANNERS
  5. FLOATING ADs
  6. INTERSTITIAL ADs
  7. VIDEO ADs
  8. PRE ROLL ADs
  9. OVERLAY ADs
  10. SIDEKICK
  11. PUSH DOWN ADs
  12. FLOOR ADs
  13. FILMSTRIP
  14. PORTRAIT ADs
  • STANDARD FLASH :
    Most common kind of Ad that you see are standard flash.It offers more advance and smoother animations , even sometimes with interactivity if required . The best part of the standard creatives are they give you the best possible creativity on the Ad with lesser size than other heavy creatives.The reasonable file size makes it commonly used.
  • EXPANDABLE ADs :
    These are the special kind of flash (generally) or HTML creatives.These have the behavior of expanding on clicking on the collapsed banner by the user.As the user clicks the collapsed creative , the size of the banner automatically changes to bigger of the collapsed one which is called as expanded unit , as the creative is enlarging or expanding ,hence called as expandable Ads.Expandable Ads are always user initiative , whether by clicking on it or just by hovering over the banner.E.g. 728×90 banner (collapsed) expands to 728×300 ( expanded ).
  • ROLL-OVER ADs :
    These Ads are the kind of expandable Ads , which expands on roll-over and not by clicking on it.The collapsed unit normally has the message saying “roll-over to know more” or “roll-over here” , etc.

Example of Roll-Over banners :

COLLAPSED UNIT
EXPANDED UNIT ( when you roll-over)
  • HTML BANNERS :
    It’s the another most common form of rich media , the use of HTML banners has reduced a bit but is still the safer as these run without creating any problems .All other rich media ads are displayed using HTML only so running HTML banner itself can be easy way.HTML ads can also include JavaScript.

Example of a HTML banner :

Form based HTML banners
  • FLOATING ADs :
    These ads are the ones which hover over the content of a webpage. As you open any webpage , an ad appears in front of you as if it’s floating and having no base.These kind of ads may disappear after some seconds automatically or  by clicking on the close button on it.These are called floating only because they don’t have any base .These ads are impossible to ignore as when it suddenly comes on the page it attracts the user attention automatically , but because of this feature only it is considered to be an annoying Ad too..

Example of a Floating Banner : ( Emblem Health Ad ) – The Ad doesn’t have any base and will disappear in some seconds or if it has nay close button will go after closing the banner.

  • INTERSTITIAL ADs :
    Interstitial means “in between” ! An interstitial ad is a kind of full-page ad that appears before the actual webpage.The Interstitial ads are a way of placing full page messages between the current and destination page.
    Examplehttp://richlink.com/app/webscr?cmd=_click&key=5zqz45rm
    These Ads always have “Skip the Ad” option , with that the countdown also goes on .If you don’t click on the skip button , the Ad will automatically redirect you to the destination landing page .It’s a forced kind of ad that is shown to the user anyway.

Example :

FULL-PAGE Banner
  • VIDEO ADs :
    These kind of the Ads are the flash ads having video on it.You can play , resume and pause the ad.These ads require a good bandwidth which is generally possible at today’s time.Video ads have increased in popularity a lot as it attracts user attention .

Example of video banner :

Video Banner (300 x 250)
  • PRE ROLL ADs :
    These ads comes under video advertising and are shown before the actual video starts. The short duration videos that are generally shown nowadays before the actual video starts are nothing but  “pre roll” ads.To check for a live example you can watch video in you tube or hulu , you will come across pre rolls , it’s very common these days.The users may hate these kind of advertisement but it’s too beneficial for advertiser at present.
    E.g. for your reference can see the below video , the OLAY video which is shown is a pre roll ad.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBOFFLYh86M]

For your reference : The actual video to be seen is the song from ‘Enrique” , but before the video starts we have a small video shown of a car which is nothing but a pre roll ad.

PreRoll Ad of XUV
  • OVERLAY ADs :
    It’s an another video advertisement popularly used.The Overlay Ad is a graphical ad in the bottom third of the video display that displays while the video plays.Like in pre roll the video used to come before the actual but in overlay the ad will appear while the actual video is playing.
    For your reference , in the below shown image , under the yellow marked region is a overlay Ad.

    overlay Ad of Vodafone

The Ad is shown above the running video , on clicking the ad it will take you to its respective landing page . Overlay ad can also be a video ad , clicking on it will open a video above the running video, the current video will get paused till the short duration video is running ( i.e. overlay Ad ).

It is called Overlay as it is running over the current video ,These ads do have a close button generally, commonly used in you tube .

Overlay ads can be of .SWF, .JPG, .PNG, or Static .GIF format.

  • SIDEKICK :
    Sidekick ads can be considered as expandable ads , as when you click on the collapsed banner , the content of the page are pushed left to make room for an extra large unit which is a expanded unit(also called sidekick unit) of the ad to be  shown.It is called as Sidekick as it kicks the content side wise showing the expanded Ad. Really cool, and a groundbreaking media first. The beauty of the sidekick banner is that the user doesn’t need to move away from the site, so the publisher also benefits from retaining the user on their page.
    It’s a new concept served into standard placements.

For sidekick ads the sidekick unit should open only on user clicking and should always have a clear close button.

E.g : You can refer the link to get a practical approach of a sidekick ad. CLICK HERE !

  • PUSH DOWN ADs :
    A push-down creative is a type of expanding ad that pushes down the content of a webpage when the creative expands, moving the site out of the way to display the Ad.A push-down ad expands downwards upon initiation, pushing the site content down with it. It comprises of two stages : CLOSED and OPEN , when it is in collapsed state it is at it’s CLOSED state and as someone hovers or clicks on the ad , the ad expands and this state is called as OPEN state.Basically what happens is when a user clicks or hovers over the banner, a JavaScript Function is called that expands a new DHTML layer that exposes the entire flash file.

The main features of push down ads are :

  1. Expanded window can include video element, downloadable links, etc
  2. Ad auto initiates expansion.
  3. High impact, high click-through ad unit.
  4. The expanded unit will not auto-close after animation ends.
  5. For ads with video, the video will restart each time the expanded unit is opened.
  6. Clicking on any area of the collapse ad will expand the unit and play the animation once more.
  7. Clicking the ‘Collapse’ button on the expanded unit allows viewers to stop the ad at any point of the animation and reverting it to its collapse form.
The image shown below is an example of push down ads , the collapsed image is the CLOSED unit and the expanded image is the OPEN unit which expanded and pushed the content of the webpage( http://www.usatoday.com/ ) down.
         Push down Ads are of four types as per the location of the collapsed unit , those are :
– On Top Position
– On Below Header
– On Mid Position
– On bottom Position
  • FLOOR ADs :
    Floor ads are the one seen at the bottom most place of the webpage.These Ads sits at the bottom of the page, filling 100% of the browser width with interactive, Rich Media content.Whether a user scrolls the page or re sizes the browser window: the Floor Ad serves as a constant access point for users to engage with brands, i.e the ad is shown at bottom of the screen taking all the space horizontally , the ad keeps on moving down as the user scrolls down the webpage.As the user keeps the cursor on the ad for some seconds or clicks the ad , it expands having video content or some more interactivity.The Floor Ad, the can be closed by the user at any time.

Features of Floor ads :

  1. Is always positioned at the bottom of the page.
  2. Can have a fixed width or be set as wide as the browser window (“100% wide”).
  3. Always expands bottom up, either on mouse rollover or on click.
  4. Close button is present at both collapsed and expanded unit.
  5. Highly interactive and attention grabber ad.

For reference , see the image below for practical approach :

MIB Floor Ad

Please watch the video also which shows an example of floor Ad of BMW.It’s great !

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN2o5y4JLnQ]

  • FILMSTRIP :
    It’s an innovative new ad format from Microsoft Advertising.Basically filmstrips are the long thread of banners which users can scroll to see more , it’s a nice storytelling concept ad with non-interruptive advertising.Filmstrip ad initially displays as a standard 300×600 unit, with buttons to scroll through a series of five sequential ads that provide a total creative canvas of 300×3000, clicking on the scroll-er , the next ad is open , similarly next on next giving some sequential messages to the users . It’s a nice way to convey any message to the users , quite innovative and a great concept is filmstrip . “The IAB Filmstrip is a award winning in the IAB Rising Stars competition for new , brand-friendly ad formats”.

Features of Filmstrip Ads :

  1. Combines storytelling with non-interruptive advertising.
  2. Size is always 300×600 plus five sequential ad , so (5 x (300×600)).
  3. It can have different URLs for all five different panels(ad).
  4. Generally user initiative always. You need to click to see next panels.

Please refer the below image to get the practical approach :

Filmstrip Ad
Clicking on the scroller (pink color area) will take you to next panel or ad , five is the maximum we can have on one filmstrip. clicking the scroller on 5th panel will again take you to 1st panel. It keeps on rotating giving users a sequential message.

Sample Video for reference :

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMFuQKtBVO8]

  • PORTRAIT ADs :
    These Ads developed by AOL which got approved by IAB last year February are always seen at the right side of the webpage using large ad space but divided into three panels and each panels can be used for different media like video , or animations or any applications , etc.It’s a great attention-grabbing, engaging ad format .Due to it’s bigger size and better interactivity options the user don’t have to leave the page as advertiser can show up all kind of message through this ad itself . Generally the size of portrait ads are 300×1050 which can expand to 600×1050. The best part is every panel can also expand as per their respective base banner , i.e. the first panel expands differently , second differently and third too.Hearst was the first publisher to start selling this ad.
    As per IAB , for now only Flash 9 is supported for portrait ads !

Features of portrait ads :

  1. Size is 300 x 1050 generally
  2. segmented into 3 panels.
  3. Strongly outperforms other options in the marketplace (300×250 & 300×600) both quantatively and qualitatively.
  4. Portrait Ads attracts attention 35% faster than competiting units.
  5. All three panels can have their respective expansion , 1st panel can expand by 613×460 while other two panels can expand by 405×303.

Different panels on web page are seen as below :

Portrait ads on a webpage

Please see the slides below to know the appearance of portrait ads on site :

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI7GapOdl24&w=560&h=315]

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