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Clikthrough is an interactive audience measurement company that specialises in video encoding, analytics and metadata tagging. Clikthrough’s unique technology allows users to mouse-over and “clik” on anything they see in a video: products, people, places, and more. Once you’ve clicked on a hotspot you will see information about the product displayed in a pod on the right-hand side of the main video screen. Users can choose to purchase said item, rate it, leave a comment, chat about it, or save it to a wish list for future reference.

Clikthrough is not just a great asset for users – they’ve also developed a set of tools for content owners and advertisers to both monetise online content and increase consumer engagement for content owners and advertisers. Their proprietary analytics package, named Traffic Jam tracks over 50 unique in-stream and out-stream consumer video engagement behaviors and metrics, allowing content owners to drill down into, compare and cross-reference content performance data in more than 5,500 different ways. This provides content owners and advertisers with unprecedented opportunities to reach, engage, measure, and merchandise to a more engaged consumer audience without traditional commercial interruptions.

Clikthrough recently announced that it had secured $1 million in new financing from a host of stellar names in the music business. These investors include Max Martin, the Swedish Grammy-nominated music producer and songwriter; Savan Kotecha, the hit-making songwriter whose skills have helped sell over 35 million records; Nicky Byrne, who has sold over 40 million albums worldwide as leader of the Irish band Westlife, and Wayne Wilkins, the chart topping UK music producer and writer. They’ve also struck deals with Sony Music, Universal Music and Slip N Slide Records to license content, and also recently added a customised iPhone site for mobile access.

By giving consumers a new way to explore and interact with the video content they watch, they’re not only providing end users with a deeper form of video engagement end. They’re directly assisting content owners, and advertisers, in monetising video content in an as yet unexplored medium.

IMO Clikthrough’s unique technology make it a prime candidate for acquisition in the hypercharged online video economy.

Many years ago, a very well known, and respected MD of an ad agency back in my old hometown of Perth, said to me when I told him what I did for a living “Multimedia? Isn’t that where i’m reading a newspaper and watching TV at the same time” – This humorous response highlighted to me (even back then) that traditional advertising agencies just don’t get the digital media space.

Fast forward to today, and it appears as though I wasn’t the only person who picked up on this disconnect. Interactive agencies such as Big Spaceship, Schematic, BLITZ and many more, have been extremely successful in working with traditional agencies in the conversion of their offline campaigns into the online space. Not wanting to seem left behind, even traditional agencies are now getting on the trolley and creating dedicated, digital sub-divisions to focus on this market.

The emergence of these interactive agencies wasn’t just a matter of coincidence – these companies understood that whilst most advertising agencies had a firm understanding of print, tv and radio mediums, they struggled tremendously when trying to come to grips with digital. Those who have worked in digital for any degree of time know that it’s not a simple, cut-and-dried medium. So much so, that even within interactive, we’re starting to see the same issues faced by traditional applications development firms, such as the divide between the creative ‘front-end’ and the technical ‘back-end’. As such, we’re staring to see the emergence of specialsied partnerships such as those between BLITZ and gSkinner.com. These types of partnerships effectively offer clients the best of breed in ‘front-to-back’ solutions for their branded applications.

Despite the global explosion of interactive agencies over the last five years, and the numerous documented successes of branded applications, Brian Morrissey of Ad Week is of the opinion that branded applications are “The Newest Brand Graveyard“. In his article, Morrissey appears to somewhat ignorantly base the success of ALL branded applications under the domain of how well they perform within social media environments such as Facebook. Despite appearing to be a technical writer for Ad Week, Morrissey’s lack of expertise in this area clearly demonstrates that he’s actually one of these traditional old skool advertisers who thinks they know the digital space.

The reality is, that branded applications have been around way before Facebook was even conceived. In 1996, Goodby, Silverstien & Partners hired Red Sky Interactive to develop what could be considered the world’s first branded application – a web banner based version of the old skool classic Pong for Hewlitt Packard (HP). The internet was a mere infant at this point, and it was Red Sky’s Chief Creative Officer Joel Hladecek who took the plunge in developing the game using a revolutionary new (web based) technology – Macromind (now Adobe) Director (a pre-cursor to Shockwave). In doing so, he essentially started the branded application wave that so many organisations are (successfully) riding today.

Whilst I won’t deny that there have been a stack of branded application failures, I would hazard a guess that the bulk of these came from traditional agencies with little-to-no understanding of interactive.

So in an effort to bring an element of constructiveness to my criticisms, i’ve outlined a few pointers for those thinking of playing in this space;

• Branded Applications are not an Afterthought – Good application development is a complex process, and not something that’s hastily hacked together as an afterthought for a campaign. Ensure the planning (for the development) of the application is considered from day 1 of your campaign planning.
• Leave it to the Experts – Don’t pretend you know how to play in a space that you don’t. Just as filming a TVC requires the specialised skill-sets of lighting operators, make-up artists, camera-operators and directors, so too does application development. Good application development will at a minimum require a user-experience (UX) expert, graphic designer, a front-end developer, a back-end developer, account manager, and a project manager.
• Give Value – If you’re going to go to the trouble of developing a branded application, make sure you add some value for the end-user. After all, they are your target audience, and they’ve taken the time to download and interact with your application. Practical, useful desktop widgets – leveraging a technology like Adobe AIR are a great example of how to offer long-term brand awareness (thats displayed everytime the user interacts with it) combined with long-term usefulness. Furthermore, using the update-feature of AIR you can extend the life of your application, by quickly and easily updating it on the end-users’ machine once a new campaign is launched.
• Keep it in Context – Where possible, branded applications work best when aligned to another campaign. Random, stand-alone branded applications have less chance of success if they’re not partnered with another form of media (e.g. online, print, or radio). Additionally, don’t market the application to a target audience outside of its primary context – e.g. don’t promote a car servicing application, within a home-cooking recipe forum.
• Right Time, Right Place – Following closely on context’s heals, is application download placement. Be sure to place the download promo/link in an easy to find location (within your page/site). There’s no point in hiding the download link on a page/section that’s tucked away on an unrelated page/section at the back of your site. Be sure to maintain the call to action right up the front within the context of the main campaign promo.
• Track, Track, Track! – It’s imperative to both agencies and their customers that tracking be factored into branded applications. Track downloads, track unique clicks, track connections, track updates, track usage time, track mouse location. Regardless of whether you envisage using these metrics, be sure to track and record them. They will be gold.

Over the last few posts i’ve looked at UX and SOA, SOC & Web 2.0 as motivators behind the recent adoption/popularity of rich Internet applications.

Another key motivator driving the adoption and development of Rich Internet Applications is Brand. To understand why brand would actually play a part in any RIA development process we need to step back a few years.

Back in October 25, 1994 HotWired (the online sibling of Wired Magazine) was the first web site to sell online advertising space in large quantities to a wide range of major corporate advertisers. They were also the first company to provide click through analytic reports to its customers. This (sales) initiative was the brain child of Rick Boyce, a former media buyer with San Francisco advertising agency Hal Riney & Parnters.

In late 1996 Hewlett Packard partnered with San Francisco-based online agency, Red Sky Interactive, to produce what is now regarded as the worlds first interactive rich media banner ad (dare I say Advergame). The ad was developed by Red Sky programmer Chris Hurwitz (using Macromind Director) and allowed users to play the classic videogame Pong within a banner ad. Looking back, it seems quite poignant that the world’s first rich media ad was based on the world’s first video game, Pong.

So what’s all of this got to do with RIA motivators I hear you asking? Well actually a quite a lot. Ask yourself – which came first – the brand or the application? The answer (in most cases) is the brand. Sure there are a few brands that have evolved from an application (Microsoft for example) but, for the most part, a large proportion of all RIA’s are an extension of an organisation’s existing brand. As such, RIA’s are often referred to in advertising circles as ‘Branded Applications” (or Branded Utilities).

The guys over at Teknision are leaders in the branded application space, and are one of the few digital agencies on the planet who actually get the power of RIAs. A belief that Teknision have (that I whole heartedly share) is that “traditional campaigns focus on entertainment to deliver a message, while branded applications provide a valuable service in order to deliver an emotional connection with a brand.”

Unlike existing Flash based corporate web/micro-sites, branded applications offer organisations the opportunity to excel where other traditional (brand or web based) experiences fall short. Applications like Nike+ harness the power of the web, the idea of a (social network based) community, a smattering of innovative Apple hardware, all wrapped up within an intuitive application to produce an unmatched user experience that is engaging, useful, interactive and most importantly begs to be revisited time and time again.

Amongst all the other benefits that RIAs provide, branded applications add enhanced customer loyalty to the mix. By providing a tangible, longer lasting service to their customer, brands that choose this path dramatically set themselves apart from those that are still intent on interrupting the consumer wherever they are.

The introduction of new technologies like AIR and Silverlight will continue to speed up the proliferation of branded applications (AMP is a classic example of this). As such, companies need to spend some serious time looking at how they communicate, not only their offerings, but also themselves to end users. Old skool (branding) mentality is a thing of the past. Customers (aka clients) are becoming more discerning when evaluating brands (oraganisations and their offerings). They are are demanding longer lasting, more tangible benefits such as those provided by branded applications. Anything falling short will be seen as little more than noise.

In a scene reminiscent of Tom Cruise in Minority Report, Adobe have just entered the ambient media advertising game with the launch of a CS3 installation in Union Square, New York.

Developed by Adobe and advertising partner Goodby, Silverstein and Partners. The installation, which was developed in Flash, is located along the 14th Street side of the Virgin Megastore and consists of an interactive wall thats 7 feet high and 15 feet wide.

The installation contains infrared sensors that locks on to pedestrians as they walk past the wall. The person closest to the wall is able to control a CS3 rich media advertisement via a projected slider button at the bottom of the wall.

As the selected pedestrian continues walking and moves the slider along, the wall will start displaying colorful animation and playing music, effects that will grow or recede at the pace that the person advances or retreats. When each selected pedestrian reaches the end of the wall, his or her design will be in full blossom, above the campaign’s message: “Creative license: take as much as you want.”

The wall will be recreated in London in early August, at the Piccadilly Circus Virgin Megastore. Each installation will be located there for a month.

A video of some geeks playing with the wall can be seen over Gizmodo’s Ad Watch.