• by Ken Liebeskind , May 25, 2001

On Tuesday, CNN announced its adoption of the EyeWonder rich media format. But it's not that easy.

"Most advertisers and agencies don't have it in their arsenal, so we'll have to build the ads, like in 1994 and '95 publishers had to build banners," says Michael Stoeckel, VP of interactive strategies for CNN Internet Technologies, a division of Turner Broadcasting.

To speed up the introduction of its technology, EyeWonder is pursuing ad agencies as well as publishers. "We're educating as many agencies as quickly as we can. We have to make them aware of the opportunity because it's so new and different from the norm," says Michael Griffin, EyeWonder's VP of marketing. "Our long term plan is to train the agencies and give away the software for free."

The situation shows how difficult it is for rich media to gain widespread use, especially for new companies like EyeWonder, which was founded last year and didn't start marketing its technology until January. But the company is moving forward, having also established reseller agreements with RealMedia, Winstar Interactive and 24/7 Media.

CNN selected the EyeWonder format because it is one of the few with automatic audio and video play. The unit features a 172 x 136 pixel video screen that plays a 15 second video as soon as the page opens, unlike many other rich media formats, which are user initiated with play buttons.

"We want to be aggressive in the video space and offer ads that launch as soon as users enter the page," Stoeckel says. The EyeWonder format also allows users to mute or replay an ad and click the video and gif to go to the advertiser's Web page.

CNN tested EyeWonder technology with ads for Volvo, Mydiscountbroker and Comdisco last month without the automatic play features. CNN also tested the Bluestreak format and selected EyeWonder because it reached 90% of the broadband and narrowband audience, while Bluestreak's didn't reach the narrowband user, Griffin says. Bluestreak was unavailable for comment.

It is unclear which sites CNN will use EyeWonder on. Stoeckel says only three sites, CNN.com, CNNfn.com and CNNsi.com, will use it. But Griffin says EyeWonder worked out separate agreements with the other Turner sites, including Cartoonnetwork.com and Nascar.com. But he agreed that the CNN sites are "pushing it from a technology standpoint and leading the charge." Griffin says different agreements and financial terms were worked out with the different sites because they have different sales teams.

This week, CNN ran a house ad with all elements of the EyeWonder format. Now it will begin selling it. When asked what kind of advertisers will use it, Stoeckel said, "Anyone could use it." All they need is a 15 second TV ad which can be re-purposed for the Web with EyeWonder's compression technology.

"The first experiments from agencies will be using existing creatives, but Internet companies that run Flash creatives will run original ads or convert them to this ad space," Stoeckel says. But Griffin laughed when he was asked about original creative being used with EyeWonder. "When that day happens, I'll be doing hand springs," he says, indicating that developing original creative for rich media formats isn't being done now. Only movie studios are developing Web only digital content, he says.

The financial agreement between CNN and EyeWonder wasn't announced. Griffin says, "We will be paid based on usage."