Smart Advertising – Interactive Ads

While browsing Zillow Discussions yesterday, one ad just popped out at me. Upon seeing it, I was immediately compelled to click on it. Why? The ad was interactive; it allowed me to control the ad. Here’s the ad that I am referring to — browse over the icons at the bottom of the ad and you’ll see what I mean (sorry for all the white space around the ad – I haven’t figured out this kimili flash embed program yet).

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.geekestateblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/15647_fd4redfin_boston_300.swf" height="430" width="300" align="center"/]

Here’s a larger version of the ad

In my book, this is a superb example of an effective online advertisement. When advertising online, the focus should be to make your ad interesting and relevant to your target audience. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the beach, so the background image interested me enough to click this ad.

Whoever is doing the creative (graphic design) for Redfin — well done!

Update: The sales team here at Zillow has informed me that Adready, a local Seattle ad technology start-up, designed this ad on behalf of Redfin.