• by John Gaffney , April 29, 2003

After Unicast took its core Superstitial brand to full-screen size yesterday, the company still feels there's room to grow on the technology side.

"I think there's still room for a larger canvas," said Allie Savarino, Senior Vice President. "What we've introduced is a new product that runs on a full screen for 15 seconds with a 300k file size, and that's the biggest canvas anyone has online. However, I think as advertisers become more comfortable they will demand even more flexibility. In time I think we will provide more length and file size."

Unicast said a response to advertiser demand for "more effective online ad formats" that offer the same creative flexibility enjoyed by offline media, drove the introduction of the newest addition to its online format suite, the Full Screen Superstitial. Savarino said an in-house survey showed that advertisers would be willing to give more budget percentage to a full-screen unit.

The new unit's introduction was accompanied by a research report from Dynamic Logic, which shows that larger sized Superstitials drove key advertising metrics well above "normal" levels. Focusing on Unilever's Snuggle brand, the study found that purchase intent for the product outperformed the market norm for packaged goods by 32 to seven percent. Brand favorability outperformed normal levels by 46 to six percent.

"Even when advertisers are seeing wonderful results from their online advertising, they're still holding back from getting into ten percent of their budget," said Savarino. "We think these numbers will get them to reconsider. Purchase intent and brand favorability are the hardest numbers to move."

Savarino said Unicast is now focused on presenting its new product to "tons of CPG companies" as well as key players in the pharmaceutical and financial categories.