RealNetworks, Avenue A Media Form Marketing Alliance

Streaming media company RealNetworks and Avenue A Media, an Internet media management company, are teaming up to promote the advantages of rich media advertising to Internet advertisers.

RealNetworks said it will promote Avenue A Media’s Internet media management services to its customers and advertising agency affiliates and will train Avenue A Media’s sales and media planning staff on the benefits and technical aspects of RealNetworks technology.

In turn, Avenue A Media will develop media recommendations that offer rich media advertising opportunities to its clients, including RealAudio and RealVideo enhanced banners, RealFlash (co-developed by RealNetworks and Macromedia) animation ads, and streaming AV Player ads.

“Rich media advertising is the future for online promotion. It has demonstrated the ability to dramatically improve advertisers’ response rates, generating enhanced campaign ROI,” said Mike Leo, vice president, account services, Avenue A Media.

RealNetworks said that a one-year analysis of 57 different audio-enhanced banner and streaming media ad campaign results, measured using NetGravity and DoubleClick software, showed that average clickthrough rates for audio enhanced banners and AV streaming ads were 5% and 5.89% respectively, with some audio enhanced banners reaching up to a 30% clickthrough.

Avenue A Media offers Internet media planning, buying, serving, and reporting services for advertisers and agencies. Leveraging proprietary technology, Avenue A collects real-time ROI metrics for its clients’ campaigns, then optimizes to emphasize the most effective ads and Web sites.