Tristitial’s appeal lies not only in that it attracts the viewer by using unique, eye-catching animation, but it also allows publishers and ad networks to sell their existing ad space inventory to three times as many advertisers at a discount of up to seventy percent on the “cost per thousand” ad impressions (CPM) paid by each advertiser. Because three advertisers can appear in the same, shared ad space, an original CPM of $30 for one advertiser, for example, can be reduced to $15 for each of the three, encouraging advertisers to purchase the space while generating greater revenue for the publisher or ad network.Tristitial allows for dramatic price flexibility to ensure that none of the ad space inventory remains unsold.

The new ad format also increases the appeal of the “cost per click pricing model,” as the internet user is three times more likely to click on one of the ads.Tristitial can also use three different banners from the same ad campaign to supply brand messaging, company or product information, and special promotions, thus accomplishing several objectives in a single space.

“Early results tell us that rich media ads perform up to ten times better than traditional online display ad units,” said Revenue.net GM Ryan Berryman in a statement. “We have seen significant publisher and advertiser traction since we launched our beta program and are currently serving millions of rich media ads per day in just a few weeks. Our new ad units, such as our page peel placement, allow website publishers to increase their revenue by serving high performing ads to their consumer base without inhibiting the user experience. Our goal is to continually look for methods to expand inventory for publishers.”

Revenue’s premier rich media formats follow IAB guidelines, and include floating ads, leave-behinds, peels, and expandable ads. And they’re targetable according to demographic and location. The self-serve system reduces the cost associated with creating a rich media campaign on the Revenue.net network. This summer, they also plan to add interstitials and in-stream video ads.

Despite the constant mantra uttered by the digital elite that the “banner ad is dead”, there are many veterans in the online advertising medium that beg to differ. Count Sarah Kim Baehr among them.

As a matter of fact, Baehr, the VP of East Coast media operations at Avenue A | Razorfish, underlines the continued importance of the banner in her agency’s media planning/buying strategies. “Saying that the banner ad is dead is like saying the 30-second spot is dead,” she states. “It’s still a huge part of how we’re buying. And until every single site decides to redesign themselves and not have them (laughs), it will continue to be a way to message.”

Getting the message across efficiently and effectively has been the most important facet of Baehr’s agenda since she entered the interactive space in early 1996. But according to the New York-based exec, her entry into the online fold wasn’t quite so premeditated. “I can honestly say that I wasn’t specifically looking for an interactive job, I was looking for an advertising job,” she reveals. “I had a background in direct response television. But I ended up at [interactive agency] Blue Marble, which ultimately became part of Novo, and I went in there as an account person. It was at the time when everyone was a jack-of-all-trades and you took on whatever you had to. I often found myself updating banner code, and going into staging servers and changing really basic HTML. I am certainly not a technology person or a programmer but you did what you had to do if you were relatively smart.”

But Baehr’s role became more clearly defined and her motivation amplified once brands turned their heads towards the online space. “When our clients started asking about [online] media and banners, I then slowly started to take on that role,” she says. “I was an account manager and a project manager, and then when we got clients like Continental Airlines, we were placing banners for them on websites. So that just became part of my role.”

Baehr’s role took on much greater significance, though, when in 1997 she joined the newly formed interactive offshoot of Ogilvy & Mather, Ogilvy One. During this late 90s period, as brands were slowly awakening to the viability of online marketing, Baehr and Co. snagged one of the biggest — and most appropriate — accounts at the time: IBM.

Her subsequent work with the computer giant over the next few years would not only entail media buying and planning, but essentially providing IBM with an online presence. “When I left Blue Marble to go to Ogilvy One,” Baehr recalls, “it was [almost exclusively] to work on the IBM brand business. By the time I took overseeing all the lines of business for IBM – the corporate branding, the PC business, global contracts, vertically-targeted campaigns- I had already worked on most of them in a direct fashion.”

Baehr’s work deservedly brought her plenty of attention, and as expected, her memories of IBM are fond ones. “When you’re at an agency in our industry for seven years, you get to know the client pretty well. (Laughs) So I had a good feeling for [IBM]. It was a structure that I had become used to. It evolved with me I guess. I think for the way that they run their media, it was very efficient and structured, in turn allowing me to manage it globally.”

PointRoll is certainly not new in the online video advertising space; the company has been providing them since 2000, and over the last year, it has served more than 29 billion ads -20 percent of which were video ads.

What makes On2′s Flash 8 video encoding technology attractive is its ability to be leveraged with the increasingly popular Macromedia Flash 8 video. On2 Technologies’ Chairman, President and CEO, Douglas McIntyre, has high hopes for the partnership with PointRoll, saying, “PointRoll powers some of the most creative video ads on the Web, and has helped drive the widespread adoption of online video ads among national brand advertisers.” McIntyre adds, “By embracing Flash 8 video, PointRoll is catapulting online advertising into an entirely new category of innovative, far-reaching and highly targeted digital media communications. The On2 Flix Engine and Flix Pro tools will give PointRoll the freedom to use the most sophisticated Flash 8 video format to create a valuable, seamless viewing experience.”

“It’s about how you market the ads, not what’s in them.”

Well, hmm. I’ll give him at least half of that point: marketing is clearly a crucial element of any campaign; that’s why most of you have jobs. But no matter how much I learn about this industry, nothing has come along yet that will change my mind about the importance of the creative content of ads. Look around and listen: the campaigns consumers talk about endlessly are the ones that, yes, were marketed effectively—but that’s not what consumers notice. What they notice are the cool effects, the ingenuity of the design, the unexpected humor or touching moment that the best in advertising provides.

I’m constantly amazed at how low the bar rests for the majority of online creatives. The banner ad becomes more ignorable every day, and with the exception of the cool expandable technologies coming out of place like PointRoll, and the increasing use of streaming video, there’s little happening from a creative perspective within the standard IAB formats (note: displaying text in bright colors and making it shake is not, strictly speaking, “imaginative”). Which is why, when something terribly creative does pass across my plate, I can’t help but pay attention to it.

If you’ve never heard of the brand, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter”, 1) you need to get out more and 2) here’s a fun chance to check it out—and learn a little something about good creative. The brand, which is owned by Unilever, has just launched a new campaign for the spray version of it butter substitute, and they’ve decided to do it all online, rather than via television. So they had Connecticut-based Byte Interactive create a four webisode campaign for them—all designed to spread via email once you visit the microsite.

The campaign is, in a word, brilliant. The brand’s target demographic is women over 35, and to make the webisode content appealing to the folks who are doing the shopping, the creative team fashioned the animated content on the model of a soap opera. So what you get, when you visit http://tasteyoulove.com/webisodes/default.asp is the chance to see the latest episode of “Sprays of Our Lives”, featuring heroine Spraychel and her nemesis Buttricia. There’s a mysterious illness to be solved (an asparagus stalk named Gus is suffering from “acute dairy asphyxiation”), along with a romantic triangle involving our two buttery vixens and the husky voiced Dr. Cobb. If you watch these episodes—which are rendered against an utterly appropriate soft yellow background—you will be entertained. And you may just want to buy some spray on un-butter when you’re done.

Does the content on the microsite remind you of a TV commercial? Yes—but only in the best ways. It is narrative in structure, its production values are high, and it refuses to cater to the lowest common denominator when it comes to ingenuity. It is campaigns like these that raise the bar for what creative interactive content can and should be…and thank goodness they’re out there. If we hope to see more companies ditching their TV spends in favor of our medium, we’ve got to give them proof that we’re doing stuff that dazzles—and matters.

So while some of you might believe that it’s true, as that industry expert told me, that marketing is what it’s all about, I’m not quite ready yet to give up my belief in the power of creative. Bravo to the folks at Byte Interactive, and to the honchos at Unilever, for thinking big. Here’s hoping they provide inspiration for the rest of us.