Advertising Online 2 Application Views, the Online Ad Alternative

The internet is now the #1 media channel at work and the #2 channel at home. Brands must effectively engage consumers online with content to remain relevant. But eye tracking studies and DoubleClick's own data show that consumers have learned to ignore online ad real estate, no matter what type of ad (video, widget, flash) it is. This begs the question - there must be a better way to engage consumers online with branded content. The answer is Application Views.

Application Views enable brands to place branded, rich media content onto the content real estate (not ad space) of targeted sites and control that portion of the website as if it were their own. Where can brands leverage this new approach?

Brands should think of all of the websites where target customers are or could engage with their brand in more meaningful ways such as product information pages on retailer sites, top bloggers, communities of interest, etc. The easiest way to start this process is to type the brand name in Google and review the top 100 results. Here is an example of a top 10 Google pagerank for Nike Golf.

Golf Galaxy is a retail site with Nike product information that is completely static, with no branded content, no rich media, no way to differentiate the Nike Golf brand from the rest of the sporting goods providers.

Now imagine if instead of this product information page, Nike placed the rich media content that they invested heavily in to differentiate their clubs from their competitors. In this case, the content is a complete flash application that includes video from Tiger Woods, product demonstrations and great visualizations. All of this can be run within the Application View on the Golf Galaxy site.

It's great for Golf Galaxy, they get more visitors and more sales at no added expense (they don't have to host or manage the content or infrastructure).

And Nike, for the first time, would be able to see how many people visited the page, how long they stayed, what they clicked on, etc. They could also update content across all sites in real-time and turn on and off features.

This is just one example of how to use Application Views to leverage existing branded content to engage targeted customers where they are on the internet.  Read a case study from Hearst to learn more.