The founder and CEO explains and demonstrates how marketers currently are using his company’s streaming technology for branding purposes, and discusses possibilities for the future.

In 1999, EyeWonder, Inc. CEO, John Vincent, along with Jonathan Mellinger and David Breckling, sought to develop a technology that would address the limitations of streaming media and enable innovative communications via the Internet. Their vision resulted in the development of instant streaming technologies that do not require traditional media players for today's Internet and wireless devices. Unlike traditional media players, the company's Java-based compression technology delivers video and audio in the form of an applet sent directly to the browser that plays automatically, with no initiation required by the user.

Since that time, the company has signed license agreements with 1,000 different Web properties and every single major Web portal with the exception of MSN. And, currently, approximately 75 Fortune 1000 companies including Coca-Cola, Ford, HBO and IBM have employed the technology to stream TV-like commercials on the Web or within e-mail communications.

iMedia Connection talked with Vincent about that state of streaming and other such issues.

iMedia Connection: How are marketers using the EyeWonder technology?

Vincent: By far the greatest application is in streaming ads on major networks like Yahoo!, Lycos or AOL to go after the demographic that a marketer is missing or not reaching as effectively as they’d like through TV today. But once they’ve done that, they learn through usage, or by example of what other people are doing, that there are ways to not only communicate purely through an outbound effort, but also to leverage those same assets by developing a concentric approach and placing them on their own Web properties as well.

An example: Coca-Cola uses us as an advertising vehicle to send ads via the AOL Network, Yahoo’s network, ESPN, the New York Times, Sony’s site, and some others. But then the company also has taken creative footage from those same ads, as well as other footage, and streamed them on coke.com and dietcoke.com.

iMedia Connection: It seems many brand advertisers using EyeWonder technology simply are running their TV commercials online. Although that’s definitely a step up from a static banner ad, is it the most effective use of this technology? I mean, I’ve always heard the mantra that one shouldn’t just take what they do on TV and put it on the Web; that this is a new and different medium.

Vincent: That thinking, I believe, has hurt the Internet in the last year and a half in that multimillion dollars worth of marketing and market inertia was centered around the concept that this is completely different than any other medium so don’t even consider using it from a creative perspective the same way. Well, the reality is that a tremendous amount of intellectual capital and a lot of knowledge and true success has been derived from television advertising and people are pretty comfortable with it. So why not start there, and then learn how to leverage off of that? Right now, the repurposing of TV spots is meeting these clients’ objective, which is to support their TV budgets. Until you have something that’s capable of full reach and frequency statistics similar to that of TV and being used that way, it doesn’t make sense to branch out and completely have non-concentric content. But keeping a consistent message and maybe tweaking it a bit can be very effective.

Here’s a great example: American Express shot specific creative for an ad campaign for Tribeca Film Festival that they ran using our technology. They had Donald Trump and a few other well-known celebrities talking directly in the ad. They very politely explained the value proposition of the film festival to the consumer -- this is what it does for you, it will be a great opportunity to help support the lower New York area, and would you please do me a favor and click? It was great because it incorporated great attributes, which would be a normal type spot that would run on TV in the Manhattan market, but then leveraged off the fact that you did have that opportunity to call for action.

iMedia Connection: It’s interesting listening to you because a lot of the talk about the Internet has been about its targeting capability, but you’re referring to it as a mass medium, being used by marketers to meet their mass marketing objectives.

Vincent: The reason for that is that the targeting is what was capable of being sold. The creative is what mass media is all about. If you don’t have creative that meets mass media objectives, no one is going to use your medium as a mass media tool. So what we as a company did was we realized there was a gigantic void between mass media marketing objectives, which is where the majority of the budget sits, and that of a creative capable execution, and so we built that product and now have brought it to the marketplace.

iMedia Connection: What percentage of online advertisers currently are using streaming media?

Vincent: That’s an interesting question. We haven’t taken a poll among the folks in online advertising as to who’s using streaming, etc. And the numbers that you see are kind of all over the board because some people are just dipping their toes in it while others are using it very effectively. I could give you my assessment as to how much media spend will go into streaming this year and moving forward: My year-end estimation of the online streaming market is $150 to 200 million. This includes e-mail as well.

iMedia Connection: Where is the money coming from for streaming and how are marketers justifying the spend?

Vincent: EyeWonder’s creative has people deploying two different budgets. One is their standard Internet budget and they’re just now putting that into the form of EyeWonder creative. Secondly is they’re now pulling budget from their TV, cable or broadcast budgets and moving that money into the online environment because they’re able to meet those mass media objectives I talked about earlier more cost effectively. In today’s market, no one is going to take 50% of his or her TV budget and move it into the online environment. It’s unrealistic. But amazing efficiencies drive from two things: One is the targetability and reach that’s capable. And then two is the fact that the creative is so compelling online and it very effectively breaks through the clutter. It gets attention. So if you took $5 million and you bought broadcast TV to a specific demographic and you took that same $5 million and bought online with any one of our partners, you would probably see up to a 10 times more efficient media buy online, taking into consideration price, targetability, as well as accountability and effectiveness.

iMedia Connection: What types of results are some of your clients experiencing and what type of measurements are they using?

Vincent: One of the reasons why folks are excited about what EyeWonder does as opposed to cable or broadcast is the ability to track the audience’s viewing of the ad. We’re today seeing an average of 90% full viewership of our ads, and that’s both dialup and broadband. We can also track, among those who didn’t watch the whole ad, where they left off – did they watch 40%? 60%? Additionally, we can track whether people replayed an ad, if they muted the ad, stopped the ad, etc. One campaign we did for Diet Coke, for example, had a banner spot able to blow up into a larger quarter-page size pop-up upon the volition of the user. The banner spot was a 30-second spot that 90% of the people watched and listened to. Then, 3% decided to zoom in on that ad and watch it again.

That’s exciting for a marketer when 90% watch your ad the first time through and then 3% decide to watch your ad again. It’s also exciting to a publishing property because now you’re getting value from a marketer for bringing a communication opportunity to your audience without taking them away from your site.

iMedia Connection: Would you say the greatest use of this technology by advertisers is for branding purposes?

Vincent: It’s almost entirely used for branding. In fact, every single advertiser we’ve been working with thus far has all been on the branding side.

iMedia Connection: Given that, have you been able to do any measurements as far as brand awareness lift, etc.?

Vincent: We at EyeWonder don’t do those studies. Our customers have done those studies, but unfortunately those are proprietary and the clients don’t even share the information with us. We’re actually in the process of doing some things now with Dynamic Logic and a few other partners to be able to try to get better metrics as to what type of branding efficacy there was and so forth. It’s something we want, but right now I think the best validation of the effectiveness is the fact that our customers are reusing it and expanding their use and their volume.

iMedia Connection: Viewing your site I see that another application of this technology is streaming messages in e-mail. How is that being used?

Vincent: It’s being utilized from both an outbound marketing perspective and from a customer relationship type perspective. For instance, you’ve got your advertising going out, you’ve got e-mails going out and then you have people going to your site and all of these have streaming components built into them. It’s about keeping a really consistent message. This application tends to be more targeted and much more direct-response oriented.

iMedia Connection: What does the future hold for EyeWonder and for streaming media?

Vincent: We’re seeing the use of streaming in e-mail grow from a marketing and advertising perspective, and I think we’re going to continue to see that grow. But personally I think the online broadcast application for us will probably end up growing faster because it’s easier for someone to execute his or her marketing objectives that are similar to TV in a broadcast model than it is directly through e-mail.