I’ve always had a problem with the term, but it struck me the other day that Rich Media as an online advertising product, is – or should be – dead. Finished and done. The folks who propagate the selling, buying and creation of such a dinosaur do so only to line their pockets at the expense of their unwitting clients. Rich media is the creative agency’s cash cow and the media buyer’s favorite whore – pimping her out at 10X regular inventory mark-up. Further, Rich Media consistently yields fantastic (albeit trumped-up*) success metrics so that everyone involved gets to look like they know what they’re doing. They do not.
To give you some historical perspective Rich Media is a term coined before the dotcom bust, before FLASH ads, Google domination, before YouTube™, before Facebook, and so-on. It’s a web 1.0 concept that has miraculously survived to the present day. The governing body for online advertising, the IAB, defines Rich Media as:
Advertisements that incorporate animation, sound, and/or interactivity in any format. It can be used either singularly or in combination with the following technologies: sound, Flash, and with programming languages such as Java, JavaScript, and DHTML.
Which is ridiculous when you consider the first animated GIFs had animation and interactivity and were therefore “rich” by this definition, and since when was “sound” a technology? I digress. Ten years on, the justification for such a class of superior ad units has surely outlived it’s usefulness.
Cheaper, larger monitors
Back in the day we designed sites that were best viewed at 800×600 on a 15″ monitor, and the typical size allocated to an advertiser was 468×60 pixels: a “banner”. This presented a problem to clients who, confusing pixels for print, naturally wanted to cram a lengthy marketing message into this tiny space. The solution? Expanding ads of course! OnMouseOver, your user would be treated to even more marketing pfaff obscuring their content. Today, with the price of a 20″ monitor well within the average consumer’s budget, we design for much higher resolutions and are offered much larger standard ad sizes. Half-page (300×600) ad units are not uncommon, and these days when we say ‘banner’, we mean ‘leaderboard’ (728×90). The need to expand over a user’s content because of physical size restrictions simply no longer exists.
More savvy users
Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice. er… don’t get fooled again. The first time I ever saw a Voken I most certainly lost my shit and clicked on it like a crazy person. Novelty alone was reason enough to click on something back when Rich Media was cutting it’s teeth. In 2009, users have grown up punching the monkey and not winning the free iPod. They call bullshit so much faster and there’s nothing that Rich Media can do about it as a tech solution alone. What are you going to do for them? What needs are you going to fulfill? What is your compelling actionable message that benefits them? These are the things users are looking for you (advertiser) to answer. They’re all grown up now. You can’t dangle a shiny lure in front of them expecting a mindless click.
Bandwidth Explosion
The ever-widening tubes of the intenets have meant one thing for Rich Media: Your retarded. Why on God’s green earth would I expand a banner to check out your crappy 30-second spot when I could, if I actually wanted to, view it any time on YouTube™? Why would I do anything in your banner when I can have an infinitely more rewarding experience elsewhere? Like, on a website. There’s the real kicker – the idea of Rich Media is such a sad joke because the whole internet is rich now. I feel like an ass just saying the words.
Accountability to UX
One would think that marketing managers, or at least brand managers would have figured out by now that a poor experience with a brand online means a lasting negative brand impression. Respecting your users online experience has to be job one. Disruptive advertising is great for when you want to disrupt someone. ie. Piss them off. But if you want consideration and respect as a brand, you need to give a little – and may I humbly suggest that bellowing marketing messages over-top of users content is not the way to go about it. There’s nothing rich about messing with usability.
Fracturing of the buy
It’s easy to be the belle of the ball when you’re the only one who shows up. For Rich Media, that time has long since passed. There are so many more options available to today’s digital advertiser than 10 years ago. There’s sponsored content, contextual advertising, integrated Facebook/YouTube/MySpace buys, site-specific ads, in-game ads, digital signage, sponsored apps or widget development, social media tactics, search keywords to name a very few. Rich Media has been reduced to just one (aging and withered) component of a digital marketing strategist’s bag of tricks. Sorry Rich Media, time for you to go.
*Rich Media metrics are always poisoned by accidental clicks.
