EyeWonder Joins Rich Media Generalists

Online video ad specialist EyeWonder will expand into other forms of rich media, the company is expected to announce today.

EyeWonder’s new AdWonder platform adds two new rich media formats and centralizes rich media ad creation and reporting for advertisers and agency clients. New units include an interaction-enabled banner and an expanding banner.

The idea is to get video advertising clients to hand over all their rich media business to EyeWonder.

“A good campaign for us was to get 20 percent of [a client’s] total impressions,” said Jason Scheidt, EyeWonder’s VP of marketing. “The rest was non-video rich media impressions.”

Scheidt said the move will diversify EyeWonder’s business as in-banner video nears a saturation point. He predicted an inevitable user backlash from the overuse of video ads.

AdWonder’s target customers are existing clients who already use EyeWonder for video and want to consolidate the rest of their rich media with one provider. Some agencies have already run non-video campaigns with the company.

Scheidt said the cost of a regular rich media campaign would be between 25 and 50 percent of what EyeWonder charges for video. He added the company can execute non-video rich media campaigns at a much lower CPM rate than what the market charges today.

The platform doesn’t include interstitials, in-stream or floating ads that lack a banner to anchor them in a Web page.

EyeWonder joins a long list of firms that have moved from format specialization to a broader expertise in rich media and online advertising in general. Earlier this month, rival rich media firm Eyeblaster announced it will develop an ad management platform for all online display advertising.