General Motors recently took advantage of a new rich media mobile ad unit that splits banner space between branding elements and required financial disclosures for a campaign that resulted in a click-through rate of 1.31 percent.

The auto maker wanted to reach small business owners in the market for a new truck with leasing offers during its Fleet Truck month of savings while also presenting the financial information it is required to include. Previous mobile campaigns relied on a static banner ad that encouraged users to click-through to a microsite but, by using the rich media banner, GM was able to present both branding elements and financial information up front to users.

?For GM, they can actually show the offer in detail and can tell the brand story before a user clicks,? said Srini Dharmaji, CEO of GoldSpot Media, Sunnyvale, CA. ? That is very important on mobile, the ability to tell your story in the banner space before they click so the user knows actually what is happening.

?It is also a very good way to eliminate accidental clicks that happen so much on static banners,? he said.

Two in one
GM worked on the campaign promoting GMC and Chevy trucks with GoldSpot Media, which provided the rich media ad unit and delivered the ads across its network of publishers.

The rich media ad unit, which is called the Scroller, splits a typical banner into two pieces. The right one-third of the banner scrolls through text related to the financial disclosures while the left two-thirds of the ad rotates in a 3D way through branding elements.

The benefit of the ad unit is that it puts an offer, such as free financing for 48 months, right upfront where the user can easily see it without having to click through to a microsite to see the offer.

Similar ad units are found online but this is the first time such a unit has been used on a smartphone, per Mr. Dharmaji.

?One of the legal requirements for the auto industry is, if you are showing an offer, you have to show the disclaimer at the same time,? Mr. Dharmaji said.

Integrating social media
The campaign launched on Oct. 1 and ran through the end of the month. In addition to the 1.31 percent click-through rate, it also delivered strong user engagement that averaged 12 seconds.

The Scroller ad unit also works for the pharmaceutical category where companies are legally required to disclose certain information in advertising.

GoldSpot is also seeing interest in the ad unit from companies looking to incorporate their social media feeds with a brand message. For example, a company could pull in its Twitter feed and have it scroll through on the right side while combine placing branding elements that can rotate through on the left.

?If you can tell your brand story in the way that you are already doing and can pull in your Twitter feed, you can combine branding and social and take your mobile advertising to the next level in terms of user engagement,? Mr. Dharmaji said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York