4-page Case Study - Posted 3/31/2009

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New York Media

Silverlight Powers Innovative Video Series with Interactive Advertising

On October 27th, 2008, NYMag.com announced the launch of the original Web series "Where's Rogan?" at NYMag.com/Rogan powered by Microsoft® Silverlight™. This innovative, industry award-winning project was the first to harness the power of Silverlight to present an interactive video series featuring elegant, highly interactive product placement - a new model for online advertising and brand promotion. TRESemmé hair products, along with 2 other major, national advertisers, sponsored “Where’s Rogan?”, which neatly wove products into both the series narrative and the compelling user interface, resulting in ad interaction rates that were 10 percent higher than average for consumer packaged goods (CPG) ads delivered by EyeWonder. Partners such as Hat Trick Media, EyeWonder and Akamai worked together to make this cutting edge experience a reality.

This joint project produced a richer, more engaging ad experience for viewers and proved a great example of how sites can monetize their video content and create new advertising space. Ricky McClellen Chief Information Officer, EyeWonder

Situation

NYMag.com launched a Silverlight-based media experience entitled ‘Where’s Rogan?’, a web-based mini-series set during New York Fashion Week and featuring fashion designer Rogan Gregory. Drawing in audiences with premium original content, this project showcased engaging, elegant advertising opportunities for well-known brands such as TRESemmé using Silverlight as the rich media technology. The original, premium video site provided its participants with ample opportunities for interactive product placement.

Solution

NYMag.com engaged several cutting-edge technical partners to help them create their "Where's Rogan?" video series. Conceived and produced by Hat Trick Media, developed by Vectorform and delivered by Akamai Technologies with ad insertion through EyeWonder’s Universal In-Stream Framework (UIF), the entire project went from concept to live in less than eight weeks. The eight-episode web series led viewers through a fictional story, including many of Rogan’s real-life friends. Throughout the series, characters could be seen engaging in normal, day-to-day activities with the advertiser’s products that invited multiple opportunities for viewer interaction with the sponsor’s brands. For example, the actress in the screenshot below is seen using a bottle of TRESemmé shine spray. This was a scripted advertiser’s “product occurrence”, showcasing one of the innovative branded entertainment devices deployed in the program. The moment the product placement occurs, the bottle is highlighted for a couple seconds on-screen and in a product detail area just off the media player for a longer stretch of time. The product detail has a call to action which, once activated by the viewer, seamlessly pauses the live-action to insert the advertiser’s mid-roll spot. After the mid-roll video ad finishes, the user is returned to the exact spot in the story where they clicked the ad. If the viewer chooses not to click the highlighted item, the story continues without pause.

Hat Trick Media, the creative agency for this project, chose Microsoft® Silverlight™ as the technology to power the “Where’s Rogan?” Experience.

“Silverlight was just the natural choice platform for such an ambitious project,” says Rob Veksler, creative director, Hat Trick Media, INC. “I mean here we had a very short amount of time to shoot, produce, develop, and deploy a fully integrated web-series, complete with branded entertainment, multiple sponsors, and time-triggered ad assets. Production and tech pros are blown away by the timeline, creative execution, and technological seamlessness of ‘Where’s Rogan?’”

“EyeWonder has always positioned itself as an innovator in the video space, so we were pleased with the opportunity to work with Microsoft Silverlight and Akamai to produce the first non-linear in-stream advertising over a Silverlight player,” said Ricky McClellen, CIO of EyeWonder. “This joint project produced a richer, more engaging ad experience for viewers and proved a great example of how sites can monetize their video content and create new advertising space.”

Bringing together Silverlight technology and Hat Trick’s production skills to fulfill our marketing partners’ needs created a clear win. It’s innovative from both a technological and a marketing standpoint, while being artistically compelling. Michael Silberman General Manager, Digital, New York Media

Benefits

Advertisers were thrilled by the resulting Silverlight-based experience, with numerous highly relevant branding opportunities both inside and outside the video that showed their products woven into the storyline. TRESemmé remarked, “The “Where’s Rogan?” project incorporated a number of different advertising models, including time-coded product integration, video overlay and post-roll video. TRESemmé really became part of the story, in a way that was fun for users to interact with.”

NYMag.com was pleased that their collaboration with so many cutting-edge partners and Microsoft Silverlight technology produced such a rich experience for their viewers. They achieved highly relevant brand placement in an innovative, elegant online experience targeted at premium audiences, which allowed their sponsoring advertisers to realize impressive results. The ‘Where’s Rogan?’ mini-series was so successful, in fact, that it won Min’s 2009 Best of the Web Award for Micro Site/Custom Website. (Visit www.minonline.com/best_of_web to read the winner profile.)

“Bringing together Silverlight technology and Hat Trick’s production skills to fulfill our marketing partners’ needs created a clear win,” said Michael Silberman, General Manager, Digital, New York Media. “It’s innovative from both a technological and a marketing standpoint, while being artistically compelling.”

Summary
Through elegant and effective product integration, “Where’s Rogan?” leveraged Microsoft Silverlight’s powerful media capabilities to showcase new online advertising opportunities.

Microsoft Silverlight
Microsoft Silverlight powers rich application experiences and delivers high quality, interactive video across the Web and mobile devices through the most comprehensive runtime available on the Web.

Built to integrate with Microsoft Servers, Developer and Designer Tools and supported by a thriving partner ecosystem, the Silverlight solution accelerates the results of compelling experiences through powerful technology.

For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com

For more information about Hat Trick Media products and services, visit the Web site at: http://htrick.com

For more information about Vectorform products and services, visit the Web site at: www.vectorform.com

For more information about Akamai products and services, visit the Web site at: www.akamai.com

For more information about EyeWonder products and services, visit the Web site at: www.eyewonder.com

For more information about New York Media products and services, visit the Web site at: http://nymag.com/.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published March 2009