Enlighten's CEO looks at rich internet applications and provides insight into how automotive marketers should be rethinking their online customer interactions.

Macromedia (now Adobe) first coined the phrase rich internet application (RIA) in 2002. Although the concept of RIAs had been around for quite some time, Macromedia's definition struck a chord with web developers, and the term stuck. Today, RIAs are debated at industry conferences, referenced in white papers, analyzed in research reports and covered in regular columns such as this one. In fact, Forrester Research released a report in April entitled, The Rise of Rich Internet Applications. If Forrester is talking about RIAs, well, they must be important!

While RIAs have certainly fallen victim to the buzz machine, it would be a mistake to let hype obscure what amounts to a powerful and more effective platform for interactivity. RIAs, if executed properly, promise to make many aspects of the online customer experience richer, more flexible and more personal. And this is an evolution automotive marketers should be eager to embrace.

Rich internet applications are commonly defined as web-based functionality that combines the rich user interface, power and responsiveness of desktop software applications with the broad reach and dynamic connectivity of web applications-- a veritable "best of both worlds" scenario. Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex and Ajax (a collection of technologies) are typically leveraged to achieve such an effect. The definition and technologies, however, are far less important than the way RIAs can enhance the user experience by transforming the largely dominant page-based metaphor of today's websites.
 
Google Maps is perhaps the most recognized example. As millions of regular users know, Google Maps enables surfers to navigate through layers of detailed content in a highly fluid, responsive and interactive fashion. The immediacy and richness of this interface is characteristic of the way in which RIAs can seamlessly integrate compelling content with mountains of data. Yahoo's Flickr service and Amazon's new personalized search service, dubbed A9, have publicly announced plans to employ many of the same principles and techniques. 

For automotive marketers, RIAs such as Google Maps provide an instructive lesson in how to weave a data-intensive research process into a compelling and persuasive brand experience. A recent interactive campaign from Jeep -- Meet the Mudds -- hinted at this approach by actually using mapping technology from Google to follow the adventures of their fictitious family.

As broadband penetration, online tenure and consumer sophistication increase, automotive shoppers expect more from their website interactions. This increase in expectations is accompanied by greater opportunity for OEMs to significantly influence -- either positively or negatively -- final purchase intent before the consumer even visits the dealer showroom. This is already true for many luxury brands like Audi, as well as those targeting young consumers such as Scion.

The fact remains: automakers strive to achieve a deep level of thoughtfulness, nuance and excellence in every detail of their vehicles. It's time to begin applying the same philosophy to their website interaction models. RIAs are a great place to start.
 
The biggest impact of RIAs in the automotive marketing space will likely be seen among core research and shopping applications; namely, configurator, comparison and product visualization tools. While many OEM brand sites have made great strides in incorporating rich media content into the shopping experience, few have tackled the challenge of creating truly rich, two-way interactions enabled by data-intensive applications.

MINI's entire Flash-based site, and more specifically, their configurator, remains a powerful example of an RIA in the automotive segment. In fact, a case study released by IDC touts MINI's "powerful brand marketing, enabled by a rich internet application," and credits the implementation for delivering a 73 percent configurator completion rate among registered users, as well as contributing more than 50 percent of all sales leads.

Sadly, MINI's site was launched almost three years ago and still today serves as one of the automotive industry's few benchmarks when it comes to RIAs. In recent months, however, brands have started to catch on. An immersive configurator from HUMMER is one of the more compelling examples of new applications that break the page-based HTML mold of click-wait-refresh-click.

Despite signs of progress, the majority of automotive sites maintain a woeful separation between media-intensive content and data-intensive applications-- and the brand experience on these sites reflect this lack of integration. As Forrester pointed out in a recent report entitled, Making Auto Site Content Persuasive, "In a world of information overload… what's needed is not more informative content; what's needed is more persuasive content." Based on this assertion, most OEM brand sites fail the litmus test.

While RIAs can indeed be understood by a certain set of technologies and implementations, it is a grave mistake for automotive marketers to dismiss them as something best left to their IT department. Is your comparison tool a static, side-by-side spreadsheet or a dynamic interface that highlights the competitive details of your product? Is your configurator a lifeless technical application optimized around generating a price rather than a rich user experience persuading the shopper? How responsive, flexible and interactive is your product visualization tool? 

Broad in nature, RIAs more than anything describe a philosophy regarding interaction models and the ways in which progressive shoppers consume content and data online. Ultimately RIAs are about creating superior online brand experiences and, yes, delivering ROI. Those who fail to grasp this point risk leaving too many unsatisfied and unconvinced shoppers looking for more.

Steve Glauberman is the CEO of Enlighten. Read his full bio here.