Eyeblaster Rolls Out Rich Media Banner

Rich media technology provider Eyeblaster announced Tuesday the availability of a “polite” downloading rich media banner ad unit the company said would marry the dynamism of rich media with the ubiquity of banner ads — without slowing down users.

The new rich media option is 100k, about five times the file size of a static banner ad. However, using “polite” downloading — waiting for the Web page to load before loading the rich media file — and Eyeblaster’s compression technology ensures Web pages load quickly for users, the company said.

“This really opens up new geography for creatives to inject the kind of rich media formats not in the typical banner format,” said Paul Kadin, Eyeblaster’s executive vice president of marketing and strategy.

By doing so, Eyeblaster hopes to satisfy two constituencies with sometimes competing wants: advertisers wanting to use more effective rich media and publishers concerned with user experience.

In addition to the rich media banner, Eyeblaster announced the rollout of a buffed-up expandable banner that allows advertisers to run multiple expanding Flash panels. The banner can act as a microsite for advertisers, allowing them to collect email addresses and give further information while a visitor stays on the publisher’s site.

Eyeblaster also announced the availability of a 300k version of its interstitial and Mac support for its platform. Additionally, the company will offer bandwidth detection so agencies can design different creative placements for those with slower Internet connections.

Eyeblaster now offers seven rich media ad formats on its platform.

The new format follows up on Unicast’s announcement yesterday of its full-screen Superstitial ad, an enlarged version of its between-page rich media ad unit. DoubleClick yesterday reported rich media continues to gain more acceptance, accounting for 28 percent of the 136 billion ads it served in the first quarter.