Rethinking Rich Media's Value

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A marketer's or creative's job hinges on making the avoidable unavoidable. This isn't to say marketers make things up. Quite the contrary; if they're good, they elevate what's notable. But if they make things up, they shall die by the sword of their mistakes.

In the past, I've waxed pathetic about the need for a new measurement model for interactive, but that's not what this column is about. Measurement is a rationalization of activity -- or lack thereof.

Instead, let's explore a users' intuitive nature when they see an online advert that goes beyond the expected. Intuition is the action in this case. Actions are measured then rationalized in uniform categories to make people feel good about what they have, or haven't, done. I call it a formula of "user criteria in a short-duration online experience." (A fancy acronym is probably appropriate here, but I'll leave that alone for now.)

Some models have helped compile a structure around how rich advertising could work. But this is different. It's more about what users are really thinking and doing when they are unable to avoid an interactive ad:

Perhaps these measures aren't new to most marketers out there, but the fact you can make them all happen in one short time is pretty amazing. When you ponder how many behaviors and actions are included in a single rich experience, you can see how judging it can be more about a preconceived notion about results than an unadulterated, unbiased analysis.

And that touches on another aspect of judging rich media that's overlooked: evaluating it to give out awards. Most rich advertising is judged, consciously or subconsciously, on a hybrid of TV and print criteria. Those criteria aren't necessarily wrong, but limited. From experience, I can tell you the nature of judging rich advertising shapes the way the work is judged. (More on that in another piece.)

All this points to a definite flaw in how we think about what's good and bad in a rich media ad. The best part of online advertising? It shapes the creator's execution and the user's ability to be attracted over a very short time.

So when we judge rich media, our opinions may only be a blink of an eye in interactive's evolution. I'm leaving space on my mantle just the same.