By: Sarah J. Heim 'Top-Roll' To Be Marketed To Publishers
(Adweek IQ) Jules Gardner, CEO of Point.Roll, cites "Let's Make a
Deal" when describing his company's new advertising vehicle,
which went live Monday on iWon.com. Like contestants on the game
show, users get to pick which ads they want to view from behind
five logo-branded icons in a bannerlike ad unit.
The 30x728 pixel product, called Top-Roll, will be marketed to
publishers. As a user rolls the mouse over one of the five
individually branded icons, a 728x200 pixel mini-Web site drops
down from the small logo. There are no clicks involved and the
user is not hijacked from the page.
"If we continue to put giant, in-your-face ads on the Internet,
we're just going to encourage users to find an ad-blocking
software," said Gardner. With Top-Roll, the logo is hardcoded on
the page, but the user can ultimately control whether he or she
looks deeper into the content by doing a mouse rollover.
Philadelphia-based Point.Roll, which positions itself as a rich-
media technology company, is in competition with big companies
like Enliven and Bluestreak. However, Point.Roll's technology,
unlike that of its competitors, uses Java script, dHTML and HTML
rather than Java Applets, Gardner said. As a result, he claims
the ad content is already client side when a user rolls over the
icon. With Java Applets, there is a second call when the mouse
rolls over the icon or a click is made.
The new Top-Roll product uses the same technology as the
company's Point.Roll product released last year. However, the new
product is targeted at publishers rather than advertisers. Unlike
the Point.Roll product, the Top-Roll unit allows multiple
advertisers to advertise in the same space.
"We're making it easier for publishers to aggregate their own
advertisers," said Gardner.
Irvington, N.Y.-based Web portal iWon will be the first site to
host the new units. Advertisers using the ads include Universal
Studios, NextCard, Ralston Purina Co., Ford Motor Co., Unilever,
Sony Vaio, Gateway, and Datek Online.
The units will run on the Winners and Money micro-sites on iWon.
Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher.
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