If you thought the Budweiser bullfrogs were kinda cute - just wait till you get a load of the Bud lizards. Scaly-skinned Frank and Louie are the stars of a promo ad put together by InterVU, a San Diego, California, multimedia company rolling out the latest in Web advertising: video banner ads.
V-Banners, as they're called, look pretty much like the banners we're used to seeing, but instead of an animated GIF, they've got a little video box playing the same three-second image over and over again. The motion is jerky and the repetition a bit unnerving, but a QuickTime video of a golf-club-swinging Nick Price downloads a bit faster than your average animation.
InterVU prides itself on being fast enough to keep clients' customers from going elsewhere rather than wait. The "InterVU Network," which resides on the Internet, is designed to maximize available bandwidth by using proprietary technology to locate its "delivery centers" - from which video is pushed - at spots on the Net with the highest sustained throughput.
Its software recognizes what kind of video player is installed on a visitor's computer - and feeds it digitized video in the appropriate format, be it QuickTime, MPEG, Vivo, RealVideo, etc. Footage can be taken from existing TV ads, or any other source, and digitized into the various formats. The videos then reside on an InterVU server and are accessed via embedded tags, so the client's site isn't overburdened with the high-bandwidth requirements.
"One of the beauties of it is being able to extend your national branding campaign to the Internet, while bringing down the cost of creative," said Doug Augustine, vice president of marketing and sales at InterVU, explaining the perks of repurposing TV ads.
His firm isn't the first to try to get TV ads to do double duty as Web commercials. Last month Progressive Networks, the makers of RealAudio and RealVideo, announced their online video ads. A trial run of 15- and 30-second TV spots converted into RealVideo includes ads by GM, Sony, Sprint, The Gap, and Dell Computers. Their Web commercials appear as full-screen videos between segments on its Daily Briefing customized news service site. You can click on them and go - guess where? - to the advertiser's homepage.
"There's a thin line between irritating people and entertaining them," grumbled Evan Neufeld, advertising analyst at Jupiter Communications, who is in the camp of those who don't think the Net is ready for TV-style commercials. He keeps the Fox News video feed on his desk for entertainment, describing its non-lifelike images as "a horror show." But Neufeld recognizes that companies like Progressive Networks aren't just selling their product, but evangelizing the whole idea, and therefore may take things a bit further than makes sense. Still, he preaches caution. "Just because you can doesn't mean you should," he warned.
John Atcheson, vice president and general manager of media content and services at Progressive Networks, agrees that the Web shouldn't become just another TV-delivery mechanism. "It would be sad for mankind if you could turn on your computer and get the same kind of programming as you get on TV," he said. But he argued that the Net's interactivity makes it intrinsically more valuable. "This is the ultimate move forward from being couch potatoes to following your interests and having an enjoyable, productive experience," he said.
Like 'em or not, the jumpy, bandwidth-hogging commercials will probably encroach more and more on your Net experience. InterVU has already seen the number of clickthroughs increase dramatically in the trial it is conducting with Goldwin Golf clubs and Golf magazine's site. Jupiter Communications expects full-screen Web commercials and sponsorships to make up about half of the online ad market by 2002; standard banners today account for 80 percent.
Still, there is the public to please, and Jupiter's Neufeld remains skeptical of how users will warm to the idea. "I like my TV and I like my Internet, and I don't necessarily want them to merge into this über media tool," he said.
