How immersive digital experiences should deal with calls to action

Wm Morris · 7.12.10  

So Steve Jobs has it all figured out how we’re going to consume ads in an immersive experience like an iPad app. The solution seems to be to make another app that has content so great that you’ll want to experience it. That may make sense for highly creative products like films or books or high ticket items like cars or high-end electronics, but that doesn’t really help consumer product and food companies, small businesses, etc. Not only would creating such experiences be costly and time intensive, but making commercials that require even more time to consume is likely to get old with consumers.

The other options are to do what we essentially have now — video ads in anything streaming (game, Hulu app, whatever) and basically print ads in anything to be read (like a magazine app). The problem there is that all you can capture is mindshare, which is no improvement over what print and television already offered — but with, usually, a much smaller audience.

It seems to me that the most nonobtrusive but still effective way to go about this is to provide a discrete button during a video ad or on a static ad that consumers can click that triggers an action that doesn’t jerk them out of their experience. How could this be done?

One thing Hulu does is pop up a fairly non-intrusive dialog  during its commercials that asks “Is this ad relevant to you?” and provides a “yes” and “no” button. It’s non-intrusive because it shows up in the frame rather across the “screen” itself. I suggest a modification of this that provides a simple “more” text button or perhaps an icon (that hopefully gains traction and becomes universal) that is displayed discreetly in the frame around the video or static/Flash animation ad. When clicked (or more likely touched since this is really intended to work with tablet apps), an action is triggered that takes place in the background. This could be everything from send you a link in an e-mail or text message to bookmark the site to Delicious to add an item to Google reader. Ideally, the platform for this call to action would be able to thread itself through most of the apps and would customizable by the user. The user him or herself could choose what the action is, thus setting the zone where he or she is willing to receive more information or coupons or a request to sign up for a mailing list of like a page on a social media site.

I also suggest that the follow up to the call of action, the thing that is triggered by touching the “more” button be heavy on the informational side of things. Advertisers can deliver the emotion in the ad. If consumers are interested, then the next step is to provide them with something that allows them to indicate that interest without jerking them out of the immersive experience, the app that they are currently in. Add in (depending on the app and advertiser) location awareness and a build up of consumer preference information, and I think you have an effective advertising platform that consumers will be more willing to engage with.

Categories: Advertising, Technology | Tags: , , , ,

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