Study Finds 340% Click Rate Boost With Rich Media

Wired Digital, in conjunction with independent research firm Millward Brown Interactive, said a
new study shows that rich media advertising significantly enhances brand
perception, brand loyalty, intent to purchase and click rates.

In the area of click rates, on average, all three advertisers participating in
the study realized a 340 percent increase in user clickthrough with rich
media.

The study tracked the brand perceptions of three online advertisers, Intel
Corp.,
Novell and barnesandnoble.com, among more than 2,400 visitors to Wired
Digital’s Webmonkey site.

For example, according to the survey, Novell experienced a 32 percent increase
in brand perception as “the industry leader for innovative networking product
solutions,” using a Macromedia Flash-powered banner for its new Netware 5
product. Intel’s brand image among Web users as a “cutting-edge” company
increased 15 percent with the implementation of a streaming, pink-plasma Java
animation that introduces its new Pentium II Xeon Processor.

“Our main take away from this study is that, with the right message aimed at
the right audience, rich media banners can be far more effective than GIF
banners at building brand awareness and driving clicks,” said Rick Boyce,
senior vice president of advertising sales and commerce for Wired Digital.
“While rich media banners may cost more to create than traditional banner
advertising, the increases in performance are significant and appear to be
worth the incremental costs.”

Millward Brown Interactive based the study on its patented BrandImpact
performance metrics, which are designed to provide insights above and beyond
the measures traditionally associated with online advertising.

The study analyzed two groups via a survey. It measured a cross-section of
Wired Digital readers after they had been exposed to rich media ads. This was
the test group. A control group of readers viewed the traditional GIF banners.

In the area of brand-linked recall, 61 percent of the survey population
noticed the rich media ads and remembered them, versus 30 percent of the
control population (who viewed an animated GIF banner), an increase of 103
percent.

In the area of brand awareness, rich media banners on average experienced a
17 percent gain in unaided brand awareness over the control banners. And in
relation to user clickthrough, rich media ads on average received a response
rate of 4.32 percent, up from .98 percent for the control group.

The complete study is available here.

Wired Digital properties include HotBot, HotWired, Wired News and Suck. Lycos is in the process of acquiring the
company.