With the beginning of festivities like Ramadan, brands have started prepping themselves to cater to their consumers with the best of their interests and requirements. Though online sales always attract people; but, during the festive season, it becomes a little more interesting as it comes with exclusive deals and discounts that encourage netizens to engage with the campaign and know more about the brands’ offerings. The more people wait for online sales, the marketers also become proactive to acquire, retain and engage the users who prefer to consume content online. But considering the market competition where every marketer wants to grip the users’ interests towards their offerings, Rich Media Can Make a Campaign Effective & Winning During Festive Season.
Here’s my opinion that how rich media can bridge the gap between advertisers and audiences and help marketers to provide people with better content, customized to their individual needs that can really do wonders for brand presence.
Rich Media ads are creating a buzz and benchmarks in the digital advertising landscape and making it more dynamic because it involves motion graphics, animation, AR and various other engagement options such as Quiz, Poll, GIF, Games, Animation, etc. All such aspects have proven to be a blend of quality user acquisition and retention as it draws user attention towards a campaign and encourages them to scroll and interact with it.
Moreover, this year, the global digital ad spend is predicted to be 626.86 billion U.S. dollars which would reach nearly 835.82 billion U.S. dollars by the year 2026 wherein the demand for Rich Media ads has also increased substantially (source: Statista). These ads give marketing efforts an extra edge and help to maximize the brand’s reach, recall and recognition, as it efficiently outperforms the standard banner ads too. It beautifully delivers the message of a campaign and urges users to engage with their devices as its playable aspects come with better content relatability in an appealing way. This resonates with users’ sentiments and they efficiently respond to the showcased adverts, resulting in the quality acquisition, retention and engagement rates as well.
Differentiating Factors of Rich Media Ads from Standard Display Ads:
In the evolving digital world, netizens get to see a lot of standard ads but now over a period of time, they want to filter out those ads that are of no use to them or don’t match their interest. That’s why, Rich Media ads are revolutionizing the advertising ecosystem with their interactive, playing and engaging elements which give a lively experience to the users that even inactive and lapsed users return to the brand to explore what all it has to offer. Here are the differentiating factors that set rich media apart:
- Standard Display ads are restricted to text and images whereas, Rich Media ads involve innovative elements like gamification, videos, user-initiated actions and other engagement options
- The biggest difference is that the standard display by nature, leads to the destination site after its clicked on, however, rich media ads encourage users to engage with the ad before redirecting to the client’s destination page.
- Standard ads have single .html .png etc. that are compatible with a format of less than 200K but Rich Media ads are compatible with Javascript, CSS, SVG, Java MRAID, HTML5 and are also called HTML5 ads.
- Single click-through link gets tracked by standard display ads; but, rich media ads track multiple click-through links along with the tracking of users’ metrics as well.
Benefits & Significance of Rich Media:
- Bolsters User Acquisition Campaign: Rich Media ads cordially strikes users with their narrative and storytelling content which effectively create a brand image in netizens’ subconscious mind. Moreover, with the penetration of the internet and smartphones in Tier II and Tier III cities, there is a great scope for establishing brands’ footholds because users prefer to consume more online content. Hence, increasing consumerism can be an opportunity for brands to tap into such demographics and geolocations because, with lesser competition, marketers can acquire users via Rich Media ads. Herein, the use of vernacular-rich media ads in marketing practices can really boost sales since the involvement of eye-catching elements along with a blend of users’ native language can be an interesting combination of resonating with the users and maximizing brand reach.
- Effective Brand Visibility: These ads are beneficial in making brands stand out as it helps provide consumers with personalized offerings. During the festive time, incorporating rich media ads in a campaign strategy with a personalized message or interactive push notifications such as ‘Festival with Family’ could encourage users to make the respective actions on the campaign. The more the campaign would include rich media elements, the more it will compel users to dive deeper into the brand’s content which could be a leading aspect for users to choose your brand over competitors.
- Quality User Insights: Marketers get facilitated with quality and effective user insights since rich media ads are beneficial in monitoring and analysis of users’ touchpoints that deliver metrics like interaction time, sessions, engagement rate, impressions and a lot more. Based on this, marketers can enhance their campaign performance while tapping into the audience with a better understanding of their choices and preferences and when they remain active on their devices.
There’s a lot more to talk about Rich Media Ads because these adverts in a form of playable ads drive user engagement since the audience also gets a hint of the advertised brand before engaging thus, it has also proven to be a replica of TVCs. When a user feels valued, he gives value to the brand too as he starts trusting a brand and often returns to it to make the desired actions wherein, rich media ads never leave any stone unturned in boosting the campaigns.
Hence, when the season of festivals is here around the corner, marketers can make the most of this opportunity to tap into the potential audience with the help of rich media ads.
Written By: Sanjeev Bankira – Country Head, Applabs
