MSN Offers New Enriched Ads

Microsoft has added new types of interactivity and animation, including interactive catalogs and fill-in forms, to its arsenal of enriched advertising banners available on MSN. The six new types of ads are part of the site’s enRiched Advertising Solutions (eRAS) program, introduced in Aug. 1999.

Several of the new ad types are designed to let advertisers promote multiple products in a single space, giving them more power to appeal to consumers with narrow interests. Active Catalog banner ads include navigation arrows that allow viewers to scroll through options (such as different products) before actually clicking the ad; Scrolling Sideshow ads feature multiple images in slow horizontal motion, each of which can be linked to a different page on the advertiser’s site; and Scrolling Text Banner ads include vertically scrolling text with hotlinks to individual pages.

Expanding HTML Banner is even more ambitious, allowing advertisers to collect information about users, such as answers to product surveys or e-mail addresses for opt-in newsletters, through an HTML form that appears when users move their mouse pointer over the banner.