The UFC campaign was created using “Eyeblaster Workshop for Adobe Flash”

An Interview with Aaron Buchanan, Technical Director at RED

What is the culture like at Red? At RED, we’re constantly challenging ourselves to get the best concept and the most powerful execution. We put a lot of effort into getting our client’s message across - we apply storytelling and cinematic elements; we’ll try to create a feeling or an emotion, and it has to give the end user an interactive experience. We always try to reinvent our creative to meet the unique needs of each new project - and when the idea is hot, it’s worth that extra effort.

You just finished a large campaign for UFC, where you used Eyeblaster Workshop for Adobe Flash^TM. UFC is a great client of ours - they have an exciting brand and are always looking for something fresh. On this campaign, we delivered that by using AfterEffects to create video that we streamed into Flash. We used Eyeblaster Workshop to assemble our ads and bringing these two powerful tools together within a flexible platform. The workshop allows us to streamline the process of producing high‐end rich media units. By being able to control more of the details ourselves, we’r able to produce higher quality work in less time. Once we got our hands on the workshop, we knew that we’ be able to save a few days from our schedule. That’s a big deal, because what we do with that extra time improves the quality of our work. The UFC video executions went very smoothly -we were able to focus on the creative challenges and spend less time with production. It was a big value for us to be able just pick up a tool and work with it right away.

Why do you use Eyeblaster for your advanced rich media campaigns? We work on large‐scale campaigns, with a lot of moving parts, and occasionally very short timelines. Getting these campaigns up and running is mission critical, and we need to deliver on time. The Eyeblaster platform is a great tool that allows us to simplify campaigns with many contributing agencies, channels, regions, etc. Since we deliver almost all of our work via the Flash platform, having a tool based within the authoring environment allows us do develop, test, and publish units very quickly. We do our own QA ‐ so having the ability to preview sync ads, for instance, is huge. It’ our task to make sure things work. With Eyeblaster, we have everything we need at our fingertips. Eyeblaster services are among the best out there, and I know they’ll be there for us when we need them. They’re always introducing new products and features.

How do you keep yourself up to date? Technically speaking, I read blogs, books, and I love a well‐documented API. Creatively, I’m a big fan of looking at what’s around me in the offline world. I love going out to the movies, and watching the titles to see how the big budget studios create new stuff.

Mark your calendar, book the dog sitter, set your Tivo because The 7th Annual Eyeblaster Awards are back November 5th!  It was the party to attend last year during Ad:Tech, so you don’t want to miss it this year.

The Eyeblaster Awards is among the oldest, most prestigious celebrations of excellence in digital advertising. We are talking one highly coveted piece of Lucite here. And you can help determine who gets one. Online voting begins October 6th. You can cast your vote on the best digital advertising in the world.
Here’s what you need to know:

• Online voting begins Monday Oct 6th and will continue through Oct 17.




• Voting results will be announced Wednesday November 5th at Arena in New York City




• Comedian Andrew Kennedy will MC this year’s Awards show.

Eyeblaster is rolling out the red (check that, orange) carpet - cast your vote and join us at the festivities.

Click here to vote!

Eyeblaster has now officially released its Channel Connect for Search. See Press Release.

For me personally, this is one of the most key developments in online advertising, notably because rather than fighting a declining click-rate, it addresses real consumer behaviour as opposed to assumed behaviour. It gives agencies and advertisers confidence in measuring the effects of online advertising by breaking down the silos of display and search and getting to the heart of the matter – if people are not clicking on display adverts, then what the heck are they doing?!

Very few people click on adverts – about one in a thousand. As a consumer, you would have to be very far down the purchase funnel as a result of supporting media in order for you to click and convert immediately as a result of a display banner. Clicking away from content to a website to me is the equivalent of asking me to get off a bus on the way to work just because I notice a sign through the window saying “discount here today.” Reality being is even if I was interested, I would make a mental note and go back later at my convenience. No matter how keen you were, most of us would still go to work first – we have our own agenda – it is a huge call to action to expect me to get off that bus unless I was already on my way there. But, I still ‘noticed’ the sign…

We are therefore forcing and measuring unnatural human behaviour. No other media channel is expecting users to respond “now”, rather they work together to build up a story where results are seen within a period of time. The lack of immediacy has no reflection upon effectiveness.

Online advertising has created a rod for its own back. Its accountability is also its downfall. This is all about to change.

Often what is missed by mass-media however, even if successful in gaining results, is the consumer journey and process in between exposure and conversion – measuring the true behavioural effects over time. In my analogy, did people research the company and/or product prior to going back there to make a purchase? After all, few of us buy without qualifying first.

We are about to find out…

What is the strategy behind Eyeblaster’s launch of Channel Connect for Search?

The link between awareness and interest has always been a key aspect in a purchase funnel. Traditionally, mass-media advertising has driven foot-traffic to brick and mortar shops where sales staff have been able to answer inquiries live. With web 2.0, much of this conversation now happens online, as consumers look for product reviews and ratings to help qualify their research methods from trusted peers, beyond mere information.

Being able to measure the effects of display advertising beyond an immediate click-through has always been at the heart of rich media. Much of the missing data regarding brand effectiveness beyond the impression is seen by consumers seeking further information – in a way they feel more in control – and that is via search. Linking search and display is in essence being able to measure the conversation between a brand and the consumer more completely. It is now possible to follow the conversation across multiple impressions and channels to the final conversion, giving marketers full visibility of their sales funnel.

What challenges does Channel Connect for Search help agencies and advertisers address?

For any advertiser, it is a mistake to disregard the 99.5% of people who do not click on an advert. No other media are measured on an immediate response, rather a piqued interest that moves a consumer along a conversion cycle. The linking of the data sets of both display and search give insights into actual user behaviors and helps justify investment in display advertising beyond the click. Pulling the results from both areas brings a more unified analysis on behalf of an advertiser as well as revealing the bearing each discipline has upon the other. From an agency perspective, it reveals crucial insights as well as a huge time saving in concatenating or de-duping information. It also helps agencies develop a more natural strategy for advertiser-consumer dialogue, with less forced emphasis on immediate clicks as a way to measure campaign effectiveness. In other words, unified reporting provides clear evidence that the credit for conversions must be distributed beyond the final impression, whether it be search or display.

What brands have used/will use Channel Connect for Search?

Channel Connect for Search was a response to Eyeblaster customers across the globe. They asked for an easy way to integrate their digital advertising channels that provided unified apples to apples reporting. We are currently running major campaigns for many verticals, including pharma, cosmetics, broadcast entertainment, automotive, financial, and consumer packaged goods.

How will Eyeblaster get the word out about the service (i.e. marketing tactics)?

Eyeblaster has a heritage of innovation for helping the advertising community develop against a sea-tide of change in consumer behavior. Eyeblaster has this year gone through a rebrand, representing our evolution from a pure rich media vendor to delivering cross-channel digital consumer experiences. Our staff from around the world are already geared up to discuss this turning point with their agency contacts. With a fresh look and message, a new challenging advertising campaign focused on an industry coming of age, as well as multiple industry speaking opportunities discussing advertising 2.0 – building brand-consumer relationships in a digital age – it is indeed a powerful and exciting and timely message for the digital industry.

Press comments on Channel Connect for Search:

• DM News: Eyeblaster releases cross-channel analytics tool




• ClickZ: Eyeblaster Tries to Bridge Gap Between Display and Search




• Wired: Eyeblaster Announces Search and Display Tracking Tool




• Mobile Marketer: Eyeblaster helps brands, agencies track consumer behavior




• Marketing Vox: Banner Ads Influence Search Conversions; Eyeblaster Tries to Prove It




• Biz Report: Eyeblaster takes marketers beyond the last click




• Business Wire: Life’s Good for LG Electronics as Mindshare Connects Search & Display

Eyeblaster’s Anant Joshi discusses High Definition TV and how it offers a new and powerful tool to really boost the excitement and value of campaigns.

This article originally appeared in IAB UK.

High Definition TV is increasingly available in our homes, enthusiastically promoted by the leading broadcasters, with a level of impact you can only fully appreciate when you’re first exposed to it. For advertisers, it offers a new and powerful tool to really boost the excitement and value of their campaigns, and recently HD has made its online advertising debut to considerable effect.

A number of circumstances and technical developments have come together to bring HD ads to market. At the technical end of the scale, the arrival of the H.264 Flash player format has made widespread distribution of HD content possible. Consumers are also making use of bigger and better quality monitors, so they can enjoy the better quality viewing HD provides, while improvements in broadband speeds have helped in making HD advertising a viable option for larger groups of the online public.

As for the advertisers themselves, early adopters have included entertainment and computer games publishers, where the visual experience is a huge part of the overall appeal of each product. Gamers, for instance, will generally have higher spec machines and broadband connections which can display the HD ad content with ease.

While these factors have created a new opportunity for many advertisers, it’s essential that consumers are only served content their connection can cope with, so bandwidth targeting is used to assess the connection speed of each user. Where that is still insufficient, users are served an alternate, non-HD ad. Reporting on these factors allows campaign managers to understand the scope and impact of the HD elements of their campaign.

Early campaigns have included movies trailers for Batman: The Dark Knight, The Hulk, and on the games front, the latest instalment in the Call of Duty series. On the horizon are campaigns from advertisers who already make heavy use of video content, such as auto manufacturers. The appeal and relevance of HD ads has been international from the very start, with distribution covering a breadth of countries including the UK, Germany and Spain.

But this is really just the beginning of the process - down the line we will see the addition of techniques common to non-HD ads right now, including much greater levels of interactivity, the addition of extra content and Flash elements to enhance the ad, and the ability to play a variety of clips within the same advert.

To make this happen, advertisers and their agencies need to take account of the challenges that developing HD ads create. Central to this is the availability of good quality HD source material - content which utilises the full scope of High Definition viewing - and agencies should plan for HD compatibility when shooting new material. As the ads are served to users, creatives also need to ensure they deliver a strong call to action which encourages click-throughs to the full screen version of the HD ad - serving the High Definition content is not normally triggered with a mouse-over, or as the initial segment of the advert as it loads on screen.

Yet, the biggest technical hurdles have been overcome, global brands are adopting HD ads, and we’re certain to see its impact on a more frequent basis as advertisers see a strong return thanks to the impact of HD.

Click here to view HD demos on the Creative Zone.

Ashley Ringrose, Soap Creative and Bannerblog

My muse best comes when: I’m around other talented people talking about random things like movies, games, sex or all three.

Your idea about the perfect working day: a Friday (we have an office BBQ every Friday) and I don’t get asked to fix the server or someone’s computer the whole day.

Your favorite interactive campaign and why: Too many. I always keep an eye out for anything from Glue UK, and the Lean Mean Fighting Machine.  To pick a fav it would have to be the Virgin Bets campaign.  I love the humor and it’s amazing that these were turned around in 24hrs and I think it talks to the Big Brother audience perfectly. It’s also a nice angle to get people to gamble which is usually seen as a seedy thing.

Also anything Glue UK has done for Mini has been very solid.

Changes that need to take place in the industry:  Less BS and media buyers working hand in hand with creative agencies not against each other.