For the first follow up to my previous Flash Advertising post, I’d like to talk about Flash banners and specifically rich media banners. Often besmirched and misunderstood before being given a fair chance, many types of Flash banners have actually grown to become much more interactive, engaging and entertaining. Most of them will wait for you to interact before they put on their show, but once you do you’re bound to find at least a few ads that will surprise you with their capabilities. And exactly what sort of capabilities are we talking about here? Audio, video, dynamic content, the ability to load child movies, etc, etc, etc.
I’ll admit that there are some Flash banners out there that should never see the light of day, but when designed and developed correctly many more Flash banners are pure works of interactive art which inform users about cars, movies, websites and a huge range of other products and services. One way to look at Flash ads is like commercials for the internet. You watch TV, you get commercials. You read the web, you get ads. Without advertising you may not have found that perfect running shoe or you might have chosen the wrong car for your needs. My point is that no matter how much someone out there dislikes online advertising, it serves a purpose and that purpose doesn’t just benefit the company advertising their product, it also benefits the end user.
Ok, enough with the talk, how about a couple of examples? Below are just a few from Eyeblaster and DART Motif. I grabbed these completely at random and they should not (by any means) be taken as the extent of what can be accomplished with the available rich media technologies. Enjoy them and remember to unblock those ads.
First, from the Ad Format section of the Eyeblaster Ad Gallery:
Here’s an Eyeblaster expandable banner demo for Jeep which pours onto the page when you mouse over it. Something to notice is that you aren’t constrained to the shape of a box. This means that your ad could take on nearly any shape you might need it to in order to enhance the user experience. Also notice how there are actually sections (or pages) within this banner. I know it seems crazy to some of you out there, but you can actually pack a lot of information into banners these days.
This Eyeblaster floating-expandable banner demo for the Chevy Tahoe combines two types of ads into one. First is the floating part of the ad where you see a silhouetteof a person running across your browser. Then, once you roll over the ad to make it expand, you get to create your own commercial from several short video clips provided within the banner itself.
And now from DART Motif’s Creative Gallery:
This expanding ad for EA’s Battlefield 2 rolls out to present you with an interactive video in which you can target and click on weapons and vehicles within the footage of actual game play.
Here’s a DART Motif expanding ad for TMNT. This one not only allows you to view the movie trailer within the banner, but it also contains a photo gallery, a synopsis of the movie, and even a download area where you can get wallpapers and AIM icons.
The last Flex project I was working on before I left Click Here to join Blockdot was a site for GameStop known as the Smack Talk Generator. While the site was originally due to launch before my departure, there were unforeseen events that pushed that date out and I didn’t get to finish it up. Since that was the case, the project was handed over to a couple of my (now former) coworkers for completion and I was told that it launched yesterday.
After much thought and careful consideration, I’ve recently turned in my resignation with 
