We’ve talked about “rich media” on this blog before, but some things make more sense when you see them for yourself. Envision your brand having the type of ad shown below. Keep in mind these ads can be built in other size ads. Our big 300×600 would be a particularly powerful size for video.

I used Luis Aguirre to program the ad. Luis is a designer/photographer that I’ve known for years. Luis is also now an accomplished and affordable Flash programmer. Once you have a look (again, Luis can also help with design if needed) and video footage, getting the ad programmed is where Luis comes in. Feel free to contact me or Luis for more information.

Luis Aguirre, luisaguirredesign@mac.com, (909) 973-6319 phone

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” — Albert Einstein.

Alright, so suggesting that Einstein was talking about online advertising might be taking his quote just a little out of context, but his sentiments are something you should consider when evaluating your online marketing. It’s next to impossible to give your boss a report showing how your last ad campaign improved people’s perception of your brand or increased their intent to purchase your product. It’s even very difficult to show how an ad campaign increased sales (was it a new sales rep, team rider, media coverage, the weather, a new product, etc.?). One of the few things in marketing that’s easy to track and understand is click-through rate, so that’s what gets used — whether it matters or not.

Take a look at this column from Dave Morgan. He’s the founder and Chairman of Tacoda, a company that delivers online ads to users based on their behavior patterns. (Incidentally, Tacoda just announced that it’s being bought by AOL for $275 million)

Here’s an excerpt:

Ninety-nine percent of Web users do not click on ads on a monthly basis. Of the 1% that do, most only click once a month. Less than two tenths of one percent click more often. That tiny percentage makes up the vast majority of banner ad clicks.

Who are these “heavy clickers”? They are predominantly female, indexing at a rate almost double the male population. They are older. They are predominantly Midwesterners, with some concentrations in Mid-Atlantic States and in New England. What kinds of content do they like to view when they are on the Web? Not surprisingly, they look at sweepstakes far more than any other kind of content. Yes, these are the same people that tend to open direct mail and love to talk to telemarketers.

What does all of this mean? It means that while clickers may be valuable audiences, they are by no means representative of the Web at large. Focusing campaigns to optimize on clicks means skewing campaigns to optimize on middle-aged women from the Midwest. If these folks are not your target, then you should be ignoring the click-rate and looking deeper, to what audience your impressions are being delivered, and what audiences are converting (there is a large body of evidence that shows that click-rates and conversion rates rarely correlate with each other).

Resist the temptation to have a blinking “FREE” button in your ad so that you can increase your clicks and make your boss happy. If your brand was built on image-oriented marketing, don’t throw that strategy away just because your audience has moved online. The medium has changed, but the message to the consumer is still the same.

I just spent a week in the Midwest visiting advertisers and attending the Dew Action Sports Tour in Cleveland. The best thing about the trip was hearing everyone’s thoughts on what they think of Vital. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. In fact, two people separately made almost the exact same comment – that Vital has come a long way in a short period of time since our launch.

When we conceived the sites we thought the mix of professionally-generated and user-generated content would be new and unique and a perfect application for our three sites. Those comments, along with the fact that we’ve reached over 1 million unique visitors since launch, is a real proof of concept for me and makes me realize that we have indeed come a long way.

Ad Age has a must-read article on a study by Dynamic Logic to determine what makes an effective online branding campaign. Dynamic Logic studied 600 campaigns from more than 400 brands last year and came up with the eight most effective campaigns. (See the top campaigns here, or learn more about the study here)

One very interesting side note is how they defined “effectiveness.” Instead of simply counting clicks, they measured factors such as shifts in awareness and intent to purchase. While brand-marketers sometimes obsess on clicks, awareness and persuasiveness are obviously the things that should matter to them. The trap in putting too much emphasis on clicks lies in ad creative being conceived so that it drives an immediate response, rather than focusing on the much more meaningful long-term factors (which are, unfortunately, a lot harder to measure).

What the top campaigns had in common:

• Keep it visually simple. Stick to little text and beautiful product shots. Online ads “are competing with a lot of other elements,” said Michelle Eule, VP-research at Dynamic Logic.
• Put the brand front and center.
• Align online and offline campaigns. What’s happening in other media can reinforce the online message and vice versa.
• Incorporate video and rich media: McDonald’s salad spun. Oreo cookies dunked. And try out various video units””pre-roll, full-page interstitials, in-banner video.
• Add interactivity. Kraft let users virtually mix its Crystal Light On the Go product into a bottle of water.

Video proved to be very important. Said Ken Mallon of Dynamic Logic, “There is still much to learn about the best ways to use online video advertising, but it is clear that video can be quite powerful. Most of the top campaigns utilized some form of video.”

NYTimes.com takes a look at the booming pre-teen skateboarding scene and the parents who push their kids to be star. Said Sonja Catalano, the president of the California Amateur Skateboard League: “These kids do videos there on YouTube. They’re on MySpace.com. They have résumés. Down South, it’s a little crazy. Half of them have Hollywood agents.” Read the story here.

Let’s hope it doesn’t end like this.

Things have been getting pretty busy around here lately, so we’ve added a few more people to the Vital team.

Chris Ganz is now Vital MX’s Associate Content Director. Working with Steve Giberson, Chris will be doing a little bit of everything content-related. I first noticed Chris through the great photos he was posting on Vital MX under his screen name, BrownDogWilson. In addition to be an accomplished photographer, Chris has a huge passion for riding motocross and can be found at the local Southern California tracks a couple of times a week. If you have any news or upcoming product releases, hit Chris up at CGanz@VitalMX.com, or (949) 265-3096.

Kyle Carlson is now a Senior Contributor for Vital BMX. Kyle’s been a member of Vital BMX practically since day one and has created some great feature articles for the site. For an example of Kyle’s video work, check this great Josh Betley video. His strong photo, video and writing skills, along with his uncanny ability to know what’s going on all over the BMX globe, have already made Kyle a key addition to Vital. If you’ve got any news leads or press releases, Kyle’s your guy. Email him at KCarlson@VitalBMX.com.

Vital BMX did a quick interview with Brian Castillo, the owner of Volume Bikes and Demolition Parts. When Brian was asked if there is there another full-length video in his company’s future, here was his response:

“Oh, no. It seems like that is going to be a dead art form in the BMX market. On The Clock didn’t take off the way we expected it would have. You just have to adapt to what’s hot, and if that’s Web videos, then that’s what the masses will get from us….Personally, I would much rather have a hard copy, but I’m obviously old and outdated.”

I can’t think of a better quote about where people go today for their information and entertainment. With media changing so quickly, companies — now more than ever — need to make objective marketing decisions in order to stay relevant.

There were a couple interesting deals announced last week. First, Surfline bought Water magazine. For those of you who are landlocked or unfamiliar with Surfline, it’s a great website that focuses primarily on forecasting surf conditions through meteorological reports and its network of webcams pointed at various surf breaks around the world. With over 1 million unique visitors each month, Surfline probably has more readers than all of the surf magazines in the world combined. So why do they want one of the smallest surf magazines around? I’m curious to see what their strategy is with such a contrarian move.

In a deal more typical of this media climate, UK-based magazine publisher Future PLC purchased CyclingNews.com. Future publishes Mountain Biking UK, What Mountain Bike, Cycling Plus and Procycling, which according to Future have total paid circulation of 142,000. Future’s press release says CyclingNews.com has 500,000 unique visitors each month. Nothing too confusing about this deal.

If you thought media couldn’t get any more fragmented and complicated than it’s already become, Nielsen (best known for tracking TV and web audiences) recently announced that they would begin measuring usage of both video games and mobile phones. The popularity of both platforms with young men is obviously massive, but figuring out how to effectively use and value them for marketing remains an open question. Advertising in video games is nothing new, but it’s faced several obstacles to being more widely adopted. The small screen size on most cell phones is challenging. However, as audiences for traditional media continue to erode, marketers will be pulled out of their comfort zones as they are forced to find new ways to stay in front of their customers. Companies like Nielsen providing data will at least make the transition a bit less jarring. Web advertising may prove to be just the tip of the new-media iceberg.