EyeWonder's client solutions director explains how to make the implementation of rich media and video easier, enabling more time for creativity.

The principal question for creative agencies and brands alike is no longer "why rich media?" but rather "how rich media?"

Rich media has proven itself as an immensely effective advertising medium; the top brands have taken notice and have been extremely successful with it: Nissan, Staples, Nintendo, Pfizer, Fox and Intel are examples of big brand marketers embracing and benefiting from richer media. Creative agencies, publishers and brands are now customizing rich media creative with campaign-specific goals and strategies to create optimal brand experiences with end users.

In the last few years, the rich media industry has seen tremendous growth and constant strides in technology innovation. JupiterResearch data projected a 21 percent compound annual growth rate for rich media formats through 2011.

Fortunately, as rich media ad relevance increases, so do rich media's capabilities. Yet, the successful implementation of rich media is far from guaranteed: There are numerous challenges that must still be tackled. Below, we examine three obstacles that are common critical barriers to success, and explain how to overcome them:

• Simple implementation and on-time deployment of highly creative ad campaigns
• Campaign management coordination between the various parties involved, straining resources and delaying timelines
• Agency inability to examine and optimize live campaigns on the fly

Each of these problems can be solved through insight and innovative solutions.

Meeting deployment deadlines with complex creative
Think of rich media systems as a highway blueprint. A functional system was designed and put into place, yet many existing companies continued to individually add streets as new destinations became available without considering the overall archetype or structure. Today the resulting system is confusing, entangled and difficult to navigate. This ad hoc building eventually resulted in the congested and entangled systems that now expand across several environments making consistent and successful implementation such a challenge. Navigating this confusing system frequently means changing authoring environments and often reworking campaigns to fit new constraints, resulting in half the product in twice the time.

The rich media industry must move away from the prevalent APIs, authoring tools, applications and platforms that limit creative personnel's ability to be highly creative or to meet deployment schedules. EyeWonder, for one, has pioneered authoring tools that enable users to develop, design and preview, test and approve rich media ad units without ever leaving their preferred authoring environment: Flash. These new tools enhance creativity while simultaneously meeting today's tighter deadlines because campaigns are no longer reworked to meet various platforms.

Campaign management coordination
As we all know, the business of rich media involves a variety of parties. Creative agencies, brands, advertisers, media buyers and planners are often housed not only in different agencies but often in different states or countries. The resources, time and coordination needed to unite these groups under one campaign vision and objective slate can often break the back of a campaign's work force and bankrupt employee resources. Worst yet, if the organizations involved are not united under clear campaign objectives and a single vision, the campaign invites failure. The problem cannot be ignored and managing it effectively can be strenuous.

The answer to this challenge is to have a service component integrated into your campaign that understands agency workflows and can adjust to the different requirements of each unique party. This enables creative agencies and media buyers to focus on their forte instead of wasting time, money and energy trying to interface between each other and additional parties. Communication is crucial for all parties to move forward as a single team for a successful campaign.

Changing horses in mid-streaming media
Even after your sophisticated video or rich media campaign is successfully out the door, the opportunity to refine it for even better results still awaits. Having the ability to tweak campaign tactics and strategies can save a failing campaign or improve an already effective one. Agencies are able to gauge campaign effectiveness through tracking metrics.

Most rich media providers can track metrics, but many lack the ability to provide metric depth or to provide them in real time. If you have a one-day campaign and are not able to analyze its actual performance until the following day, any insights and potential adjustments are a lost cause and impressions and dollars are flushed away.

Like rich media itself, its tracking metrics are evolving. Real-time metrics are an essential component for optimizing campaign results. The ability to review brand studies, campaign benchmarks and other analytics in real time enables agencies to clearly gauge effectiveness while allowing time to apply campaign revisions for maximum ad effectiveness.

Technology can elevate rich media above the status quo
Agencies and media planners shouldn't have to settle for the status quo and don't have to settle for anything less than the best. Extensible and user-friendly systems are now available and drive rapid deployment of highly creative ad campaigns. These systems pride themselves on driving creative innovation while simultaneously eliminating any extraneous steps in the process by offering the most efficient and unrestricted production tools and services available. Technologies that are focused on streamlining the entire rich media production process while maximizing creative freedom and uniting campaigns under a single vision are today's true innovations of the industry.

Ryan Manchee is the client solutions director of EyeWonder, Inc. Read full bio.