Advertising on the Grand Canal
Internet TV is seeing rapid growth in user numbers—making it an attractive platform for advertisers as well. Adlink Media and its Internet TV partner Wilmaa have developed a new type of interactive advertising: Click&Mail.
More and more people are watching TV via the internet: twelve percent of German-speaking Swiss regularly watch web TV. Internet TV is particularly popular among 15 to 49-year-olds. They watch TV on the Internet on their laptop while at work or on the move, or use the service when their normal TV set at home is occupied. Many no longer have a television at all and get their news and entertainment exclusively from the Internet.
In December 2008, Gartenhof Media, a subsidiary of Solutionpark AG, went live with its browser-based television Wilmaa. Anyone in Switzerland can register free of charge at Wilmaa.com and then receive 22 television channels via their computer. Wilmaa's advertising offer is marketed by the Goldbach Media Group subsidiaries IP Multimedia and Adlink Media. They are also developing new advertising formats together with Wilmaa. More than 137,000 users have registered with Wilmaa since December 24, 2008.
New advertising format
Wherever there are recipients, advertising is not far away. "We offer four forms of advertising at Wilmaa," says Martin Radelfinger, Chief Business Development Officer at Goldbach Media. "Welcome ads, channel switch ads, reminders and our new Click&Mail format. With Click&Mail, we avoid a media break: information about the product advertised in the spot is sent to the user on request via e-mail without them having to interrupt the program flow."
No user can avoid the welcome spot. Anyone accessing Wilmaa lands on a stand-alone moving image in widescreen format that remains until the website has loaded - for up to 30 seconds. The welcome spot costs CHF 90 CPM. The channel switch spot appears every time the channel changes. It is a maximum of 15 seconds long and costs CHF 80 CPM. The reminder is a combination of welcome and channel switch ad. Its sequential placement, like a TV reminder, guarantees the advertising company maximum attention. The investment for the combination of the welcome ad with a reminder: CHF 120 CPM.
Purposeful and intentional
Wilmaa has supplemented the three classic advertising formats with a new, interactive format that can be booked in combination with the channel switch ad: Click&Mail. With this form of advertising, two speech bubbles appear at the top of the screen in addition to the channel switch ad. The user is addressed by name and asked whether they would like to receive further information on the topic advertised in the channel switch ad. They can then agree or decline. An example: An automobile advertisement is shown in the channel switch film, the viewer is then asked in the Click&Mail whether he would like to take a test drive in the advertised vehicle. If they click on "yes, I want to take a test drive", they receive the corresponding offer by e-mail.
"All of our users are registered with Wilmaa," explains Radelfinger. "So we not only have everyone's email address and zip code, but also an interest profile. On this basis, we can send targeted advertising - and we also have the explicit consent of our customers to do so, namely by clicking on the speech bubble in which more information is offered." According to Radelfinger, Click&Mail is a completely new form of advertising that is not yet offered anywhere in connection with web TV. The channel switch spot with Click&Mail costs CHF 100 CPM, and there is also a flat fee of CHF 1,000 for handling the mail.
In a comparison of all advertising formats offered by Wilmaa, the click yield of the Welcome Ads is particularly impressive: they achieve an impressive 15 percent. "The communication objective should determine the choice of advertising formats," says Radelfinger. "If a customer wants interaction in addition to branding, the combination of the channel switch ad with the Click&Mail format is suitable." The package costs CHF 120 CPM.
Up to date
Wilmaa is Flash-based and runs in a flexible development environment. This enables Wilmaa to constantly optimize its offering. "The community also plays a major role for us," says Thomas Gabathuler, Managing Director of Wilmaa. "The hits from our users tell us exactly which services are popular and which are not. We implement this input 1:1." At the beginning of the week, Wilmaa launched a new feature: the "Channel Hit Parade". While watching a program, users can see at the edge of the screen which channels are currently experiencing strong growth in viewer numbers. They are marked with a star. This allows the viewer to see immediately whether there is perhaps a more exciting program on somewhere or - if news programs are very popular, for example - whether a current event is moving the world.
Anne-Friederike Wilhelm
In December 2008, Gartenhof Media, a subsidiary of Solutionpark AG, went live with its browser-based television Wilmaa. Anyone in Switzerland can register free of charge at Wilmaa.com and then receive 22 television channels via their computer. Wilmaa's advertising offer is marketed by the Goldbach Media Group subsidiaries IP Multimedia and Adlink Media. They are also developing new advertising formats together with Wilmaa. More than 137,000 users have registered with Wilmaa since December 24, 2008.
New advertising format
Wherever there are recipients, advertising is not far away. "We offer four forms of advertising at Wilmaa," says Martin Radelfinger, Chief Business Development Officer at Goldbach Media. "Welcome ads, channel switch ads, reminders and our new Click&Mail format. With Click&Mail, we avoid a media break: information about the product advertised in the spot is sent to the user on request via e-mail without them having to interrupt the program flow."
No user can avoid the welcome spot. Anyone accessing Wilmaa lands on a stand-alone moving image in widescreen format that remains until the website has loaded - for up to 30 seconds. The welcome spot costs CHF 90 CPM. The channel switch spot appears every time the channel changes. It is a maximum of 15 seconds long and costs CHF 80 CPM. The reminder is a combination of welcome and channel switch ad. Its sequential placement, like a TV reminder, guarantees the advertising company maximum attention. The investment for the combination of the welcome ad with a reminder: CHF 120 CPM.
Purposeful and intentional
Wilmaa has supplemented the three classic advertising formats with a new, interactive format that can be booked in combination with the channel switch ad: Click&Mail. With this form of advertising, two speech bubbles appear at the top of the screen in addition to the channel switch ad. The user is addressed by name and asked whether they would like to receive further information on the topic advertised in the channel switch ad. They can then agree or decline. An example: An automobile advertisement is shown in the channel switch film, the viewer is then asked in the Click&Mail whether he would like to take a test drive in the advertised vehicle. If they click on "yes, I want to take a test drive", they receive the corresponding offer by e-mail.
"All of our users are registered with Wilmaa," explains Radelfinger. "So we not only have everyone's email address and zip code, but also an interest profile. On this basis, we can send targeted advertising - and we also have the explicit consent of our customers to do so, namely by clicking on the speech bubble in which more information is offered." According to Radelfinger, Click&Mail is a completely new form of advertising that is not yet offered anywhere in connection with web TV. The channel switch spot with Click&Mail costs CHF 100 CPM, and there is also a flat fee of CHF 1,000 for handling the mail.
In a comparison of all advertising formats offered by Wilmaa, the click yield of the Welcome Ads is particularly impressive: they achieve an impressive 15 percent. "The communication objective should determine the choice of advertising formats," says Radelfinger. "If a customer wants interaction in addition to branding, the combination of the channel switch ad with the Click&Mail format is suitable." The package costs CHF 120 CPM.
Up to date
Wilmaa is Flash-based and runs in a flexible development environment. This enables Wilmaa to constantly optimize its offering. "The community also plays a major role for us," says Thomas Gabathuler, Managing Director of Wilmaa. "The hits from our users tell us exactly which services are popular and which are not. We implement this input 1:1." At the beginning of the week, Wilmaa launched a new feature: the "Channel Hit Parade". While watching a program, users can see at the edge of the screen which channels are currently experiencing strong growth in viewer numbers. They are marked with a star. This allows the viewer to see immediately whether there is perhaps a more exciting program on somewhere or - if news programs are very popular, for example - whether a current event is moving the world.
Anne-Friederike Wilhelm
Click&Mail: Anyone who is shown a channel-switch film about Peter Fox on Wilmaa will shortly afterwards receive a speech bubble offering further information about the singer's new album. The reply "Hello Wilmaa. Yes, with pleasure. Please email me" generates an info mail in which the viewer not only finds further details about the artist, but also a link to Exlibris where they can download the album directly.
