One successful road for the online advertising: a microsite inside and overlayer. It's called innovation

Once in a while, in each industry, innovation has to come once again. The traditional methods get loose, the usual ways get boring or less effective. So there has to be someone to bring something new to the world. This is what I want to write about: innovation. For now, I’m going to stick to innovation in online advertising. And here’s a great example of innovation, where a classic banner meets a microsite and emerges into a great idea: a microsite inside an overlayer.

What I’m talking about is this great example of non-intrusive overlayer one click away. I found the banner on TwitPic.com and I was curious what’s the selling price for the new Chevrolet Cruze. I don’t intend to buy a car in the near future, but I find it interesting to check the prices once in a while. The recession is a good moment to buy and that’s especially because of the sales and the great rebates. Anyway, here’s how the ad looks like (if you think the video is too small, feel free to watch it on youtube.com):

What can you see? Let me give you a few hints:

1. a traditional 300×250px ad size
2. a normal and pretty classic Flash banner
3. a non-intrusive overlayer launched through a simple click
4. a real website inside the overlayer
5. no fake links to send you to the website

What are the conclusions? Well, I have a few and I’m glad I can write them down:

1. the ad gives the viewer almost full information about the product
2. the only thing you have to do to get a price list is to click, which is a cheap price to pay
3. a great average time spent on the microsite, which gives the advertiser great brand exposure, especially product exposure
4. exceptionally great PR potential
5. a real clickthrough rate, because only the interested people will click
6. a huge potential conversion rate, even if it’s not about sales, but test-drive requests

I’m not sure what agency is behind this cool idea, but I tend to believe it’s Grey EMEA. Actually, Grey EMEA got a few prizes at this year’s edition of Cannes Lions Festival.