To understand the value of using widgets in your rich media advertising campaigns, let’s first define what a “widget” is. For the purpose of an advertising campaign, widgets are applications with valuable or sharable content such as audio, video, games and animation and, to the user, are most interesting or valuable when that content changes or gets dynamically updated.
Examples of widgets are everywhere these days, such as those featuring live video feeds to events or those with new daily games or audio. Advertisers can distribute online widgets to audiences via a website, a rich media advertisement or even via another widget. Their inherent value lies in the fact that they keep the user continually connected to the advertiser. Widgets become even more valuable to advertisers when users are able to easily grab them and showcase them externally: in their blogs, their websites or perhaps, most compellingly, in their personal social networking spaces. This allows users to share and showcase their affinity for specific brands, products and causes.
Today’s most successful rich media and video ad campaigns allow users to engage, interact and then get rewarded; creative that features widget-sharing successfully accomplishes all three of these goals. Yet despite the popularity of widgets, many advertisers still do not understand how they work, how they can be measured and, most importantly, how they can be leveraged to improve results for the associated rich media campaigns. Applications with viral aspects are not new to the industry — many of the most successful campaigns have included some sort of viral aspect — but giving active target audiences the opportunity to display and share this content from within their own online venues is a new trend that deserves special attention. Widgets give advertisers a fresh new way to connect to their audience and build loyalty as well as a streamlined approach to measure and report on this viral behavior.
The payoff
Once the user encounters their first widget-equipped online ad and sees how easy it is to post this compelling digital content to virtually any social network profile or blog (e.g., Facebook, MySpace or Blogger), they may fill their sites with widgets of their favorite products or causes.
The benefits are two-fold: the advertiser’s message is automatically experienced more frequently by more loyal audiences, and simultaneously by more relevant audiences, as the widgets are voluntarily posted to sites or profiles that users have a personal relationship with, such as a coworker’s blog or a friend’s profile.
Another payoff for users is that these widgets allow them to “wear” brands or causes as a “badge” — a way of defining and reflecting who they are to their peers. In these “green” days, a user might embrace a widget of an environmentally-friendly cause or company, which allows them to reinforce their online identity as one who truly cares.
This kind of in-depth behavioral information can be leveraged to optimize future online ad efforts. For example, you can prioritize social networking sites to appear first in your widget option list, so that you are encouraging posting to those sites first. Or you can optimize the ad widget and experience toward a particular audience’s profile and preferences. And remember, as you design the creative to show off your widget for download, the closer you put the “grabbing” functionality to the first interaction, the more embeds/downloads you will get. Always make it clear and easy.
Widget campaigns are also a fantastic fit for entertainment clients who might have high-profile content, such as movie trailers, which have some repeat value for viewing or for forwarding to friends. Naturally some of these may have a shorter lifetime on the user’s profile, so it is best to provide a dynamic element to the widget, such as a countdown clock that displays how long the movie or trailer will be available.
The wonderful world of widgets features a wealth of opportunities for online advertisers, and today’s top rich media providers like the company I work for, EyeWonder, are making the technology behind all of this easier than ever for advertisers to leverage. Additional verticals and brands are reaching outside of the box to try something new, and successes are continuing to manifest in ways that weren’t originally envisioned. Successful widget-based ad campaigns engage, interact and reward the user, and technologies and tactics that continue to enable advertisers to meet or exceed expectations are sure to stay at the forefront of the online advertising world.
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I think this is definitely something we can introduce to our clients who are aching for some web based activity (or the clients that we are aching to get some web based activity going for). It’s a cool “how to” and I use widget constantly. The interesting thing is that there a widget was created for a reason and you can guarantee at least one person is using it. Though, I have to say my favorite part of this article was the appearance by Flight of the Conchords and Harry Potter!
Comment by Meggizzle January 22, 2008 @ 2:17 pmuh oh… look what i found…
adweek.com
“Online advertising will face a number of hurdles over the next year, according to Deloitte’s Media Predictions report, published today (January 22). It predicts that consumers will become hostile towards to online advertising, as part of a backlash against behaviour tracking.
This antipathy towards online advertising will not be helped by slowing in the growth of broadband connections in key markets, such as the US and the UK.
Deloitte say that advertisers should offer the user incentives, such as free content, for using online advertising.
The report also says the industry should position online advertising as one part of the media mix within a campaign, not as a lone platform to go head-to-head with traditional media. Competition from traditional media will also rise, with TV bolstered by internet television.
The sector must also watch for greater regulatory pressure as online advertising becomes more successful.”
Comment by tiavamp January 23, 2008 @ 4:23 pm