• by November 7, 2000

Streaming media ads, much like traditional television advertising, are video or animation advertisements that are interspersed between video or audio content. And this week, two industry leaders hail streaming media advertising as an increasingly effective way to reach target audiences and build brands.

Avenue A and RealNetworks are bubbling over with joy after the release of the “stellar results of RealNetworks' latest streaming ad campaign” earlier this week. The goal of the one-month campaign was to drive traffic to the Real.com website and encourage downloads of the latest RealPlayer software. RealNetworks created the streaming media ads, while Avenue A’s Atlas Digital Marketing Technology Suite delivered, tracked and optimized results.

The Results? This campaign achieved an average CTR of 5.6%, over 13 times greater than the 0.42% industry average for banner ads, company officials reported. While such click-through results are excellent, they're not nearly as compelling as the conversion rates, the rates at which people perform a desirable action such as a sale or registration.

The average conversion rate from this streaming campaign, a download of RealPlayer software, was over five times higher than RealNetworks' conversion rate from previous banner ad campaigns, the announcement said.

"We know that streaming media ads combine the best of TV brand advertising with the best aspect of the web: direct response," claimed Shelley Morrison, VP of media and distribution sales, RealNetworks, Inc. “Given the exceptional quality and response of streaming, it was natural that we would utilize the medium that we invented to then promote our own products,” she said. "We designed tremendously effective RealFlash enhanced ads and worked with Avenue A to target the best sites on which to place them. The results prove what we always knew... that streaming ads really work!"

Brian McAndrews, Avenue A's president and CEO said, "Streaming media ads are compelling and represent one of several options that can give an ad campaign more impact. When combined with Avenue A's ability to target media placements and offer real-time testing and optimization, streaming ads can generate great results. The RealNetworks campaign demonstrated that the outcome can be phenomenal."

THE STREAMING AUDIENCE

The streaming audience is growing rapidly. Currently, RealNetworks reports over 155 million unique registered RealPlayer users and the August 2000 Media Metrix Soft Usage Report showed that the RealPlayer was the 5th most used software on the desktop with a 31 percent reach. Additionally, according to a recent Arbitron report, "Streamies," people who listen to or view streaming media content online, are far more likely to pay attention to ads and are more likely to react to and click on ads. Streamies are also twice as likely as non-Streamies to shop online and are 70% more likely to buy online.

In branding studies conducted over the last year by Millward Bro