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Storytelling With Rich Media

Storytelling With Rich Media

 

In today’s content-obsessed world, it’s impossible to be in the creative game without being a publisher. Heck, we’re all storytellers in this industry. Social properties. Blogs. Websites. Wherever our audience is hanging out, it’s our goal to deliver them an easily digestible story. Ads should be no different. We spend time and money on purchasing the perfect placement, so we shouldn’t let those resources go to waste. Understanding that rich media ads are a perfect storytelling and content delivery platform is crucial to a successful campaign. Here are a few things to keep in mind along the development path:

Stories so good they’ll be told for [digital] generations. We all know attention spans are short – especially in the ad world. We often only have seconds (if we’re lucky) to signal the user, catch their attention and convey a story. When we’re developing stories for ads, specifically rich media, it’s important to understand the timeframe for which we own the readers’ eyeballs. Make it understandable. Make it quick. Get to the point. You don’t want to leave the user with that awkward “Uncle Joe is telling another lame joke without a punch line” feeling.

Often, when we hear a great story, we retell it to friends. Remember to make your stories shareable by adding social sharing features to your ads when appropriate. Pre-populate sharing text to make it easy and automatic for users to retell your story. Remember – content worth sharing will be shared. Yes, even from ads.

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Let’s face it – most rich media development technology is heavy. Don’t let clunky technologies get in the way of your storytelling. Creatives often find themselves rushing to meet client deadlines because of the complex process that is rich media development. It’s easy to get lost in deadlines, approvals and communications rather than focusing on building great creative. It’s important to try to block those things out from time to time and do what you do best-create. Fortunately, there are helpful solutions out there to minimize these time-consuming issues.

Doesn’t this book have any pictures in it? Today’s web is visually driven. As is the case with any great website, ads should be visually engaging. Rich media is the perfect place to tell that story with high quality visuals. Great messaging can only get you so far-compelling images help to capture the most attention and drive the most action.

There are so many things to keep in mind during ad development. General creative rules, industry standards, client deadlines and demands. We think the process behind it all should be as simple as possible. That way, your story can take center stage.