Note: Cooliris announced on October 20 that it has partnered with AOL to bring the AdJitsu Immersive 3D Ads platform to Editions by AOL, a free daily magazine for the iPad .
We use the word “immersive” rather loosely when we talk about Web-based 3D content. Instinctively, we know that images that have contours and textures, shadow and motion are more engaging than flat, construction-paper cutouts. Data show that 3D ads capture attention and steal a little more time. They are, by some elusive measure, “more effective.”
Now, though, there is definitive proof that 3D ads do, in fact, mess with our heads. AdJitsu, the 3D mobile advertising business unit of UX-experts Cooliris, commissioned neural researcher Neural Marketing to observe the brains of consumers as they interacted with mobile advertising.
Reaction to 2D ad
This is a brain of a 29 year-old male looking at a 2D advertisement. The red blocks indicate brain activity, and most add execs would be pretty happy to see a subject’s brain lighting up as it observed the agency’s brilliant creative. Most ad execs would be selling themselves (and their clients) short.
Reaction to 3D ad
The image at the right is a brain on 3D. Subjects watched and engaged with this AdJutsu mobile ad. And their brains lighted up like Christmas trees,registering significantly more neural activity. Now lest you think this is some anomalous reaction of a youthful male, the company reported similar results across age groups and gender. (The video of the brain scan can be seen at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20148515/cooliris_final%20%281%29.mov .)
According to the researchers, when someone interacts with a 3D ad, the experience is similar to interacting with a real object. And what are all those firing neurons worth to advertisers? Today, CPMs for HTML5 ads range from $10 to $100 depending on the placement, audience, and ad network. The baseline for a 3D ad is between $25 and $100 and ranges upwards from there, again depending on the target audience, according to the AdJitsu team.
For those of us who have been watching Cooliris, AdJitsu is a giant leap into the commercialization of some of the company’s coolest user experience technologies. And AdJitsu is just getting started. Today, the business helps agencies develop 3D creative to run on the AdJitsu platform and collects licensing fees every time a 3D ad runs on its engine. AdJitsu has partnered with ad networks inmobi and gamemobi to deliver ad impressions. And early next year, the company plans to deliver the tools that will enable agencies to develop its own – dare I say it – immersive 3D advertising.
The AdJitsu platform currently supports iOS; Andoid support will be available in 3 quarters.
The National Science Foundation, specifically, and the federal SBIR program, generally, are arguably the most active “angel investors” in young businesses. The SBIR program is designed to support and encourage research as it makes its way from the lab to commercialization. A majority of grants are made to academic research teams validate concepts both technically and with potential customers, and to spin that work out into a new business. But the SBIR program is a great tool for already-commercial businesses, providing non-dilutive funding to test significant new concepts and move them to reality.