Although GIF ads may have driven more clicks in this week's test, Media Contacts' Amy Auerbach reminds us that Flash does have indisputable advantages.
With rich media being all the rage and streaming ads about to hit really big, it almost seems superfluous to test a static ad against an animated one. Doesn't conventional wisdom dictate that animation is better? It disrupts the user's experience, grabs his attention, and gets the advertiser's message across. For the Sugarshots open source marketing campaign, Doug Shumacher and the folks at Basement Inc. have implemented a test to get at the truth -- is the industry really benefiting from the "attention getting" creative we produce? (To review the results of the test, please click here.)
Advertisers have been increasingly using Flash technology as the standard to produce online advertising units. GIF units are included mostly as a default execution to serve to users who may not have a browser compatible with the level of Flash being used. More often than not, default GIF units outperform Flash in terms of clickthrough rates in these campaigns. However, the default impressions were much lower in number than the Flash impressions; they were maybe only 10 percent of total campaign impressions. Before the advent of online reach and frequency, I used to call this lift in CTR for GIFs "The Phenomenon." Default GIF units only reach a small number of users at a very low frequency. Since there are very few wasted impressions at excessive frequency levels, the CTR is higher than normal. Flash units can be served in tens of millions of impressions, and the excess impressions can decrease cumulative CTR over time.
Another logistical reason for high GIF performance is load time. GIFs deliver in one load; Flash units could even involve multiple movies -- all of which must load before the full message can be delivered. Users navigate the internet from page to page within seconds. The next pages may begin to load before the animation ends. Better chance to see equals greater opportunity to click.
Final frame messaging is also sometimes overlooked during creative reviews. Agencies and clients alike forget that they have the luxury to reload the unit to see what they missed. A user may have just scrolled down to view below the fold content, and the ad unit may have already resolved to its final frame. If the messaging isn't clear at this point, the impression is basically lost.
This is not a treatise to start a revolution to revert back to the early days when GIF was the only choice. Flash technology and other rich media products are of great importance to provide opportunities for innovation and true entertainment online. Flash enables multiple messaging within a unit, which creates more value in one impression. Flash technology enables multiple functionalities within a unit; it can thus bring the website experience to the user, without the user having to transfer to the advertiser's website. Just a few examples would be completing a sign-up for an email newsletter, checking out different product features, forwarding information to a friend, and downloading a recipe -- all without leaving the current site.
Depending on the campaign objective, Flash technology provides a much richer experience for the user. Awareness goals are better achieved using Flash creative vs. GIF. And depending on the type of audience, a more interactive experience is appreciated. Online creative strategists must consider these factors, as well as site placement, when deciding which technology is right for their particular campaign. A unit placed in a technical instructional article may be welcomed by the audience more with direct language and simple messaging. On a gaming site, Flash may be necessary to stand out in the interactive nature of the site. Flash and other rich media will be the mechanisms to evolve online advertising towards the "brass ring" of emotional connection that other media, like TV, have been able to achieve. Broadband connectivity will continue to enable a better experience with these more complex online ads.
The goals of the Sugarshots campaign are to drive traffic and to generate online sales. In this week's test, where impression deliveries are about equal, the GIF creative has a CTR and click volume about 15 times that of the Flash. This would indicate that the GIF unit was more effective in driving traffic to the Sugarshots website. Perhaps some of the logistical reasons mentioned above did have an effect on performance. It may also be that the animation in the Flash unit was inserted for animation's sake and would have performed better with a more purposeful animation. The Flash unit did have a higher percentage of product purchase than the GIF. Only five percent of visits generated from GIF impressions purchased, while 29 percent of Flash visits bought the product online. The Flash animation unit drove less traffic, but based on these results, the traffic was more qualified. The users driven by the Flash units had a greater interest in the product that the GIF users.
So is less (animation) more? As online advertising budgets get bigger and more brand-awareness focused, clients will be looking for creative that emotionally connects with the target consumer more and more. Interaction and engagement will be the priority; clicks will no longer be a key metric. Greater bandwidth through broadband connections in the home, and the digitizing of TV and TV advertising, will create new standards of what creative should be across all forms of media. Creative directors will have to work to develop concepts that are interesting and that draw the user in without going too far. Flash based ads are a great way to do that. In most cases, less will not be more. But more may be a little less than we would think.
Amy Auerbach is account director for Media Contacts.