If You Were Reincarnated As An Animal, What Would You Be?

You may think this question falls into the realms of the 'first-date-awkward-silence-filler'. Oh! sweet ignorance! how wrong you are. For a start, everyone knows that the pedestrianisation of Norwich city centre is a topic which lends itself perfectly to such moments where conversation is needed. But what you might not be aware of is that this question is actually bedfellows with the long-running debate of where to direct your media spend. Let me explain.

Standard media. It's cheap. It's nasty. And much like pigeons, it's everywhere. Of course you'll sometimes be lucky enough to see a Wood Pigeon or Collared Dove, but for the most part it's taking every opportunity to use its one good leg to stagger around, defecating on your browser. When it comes to impressing the lady-folk (i.e. 'convert'), the Pigeon's only game-plan is to rely on there being so many of its type that the law of probability states it will eventually garner some interest. Mass exposure to this poor creature does little to enamor you to what it represents; saturation leads to visual immunisation. When was the last time you remember seeing a Pigeon? I mean really seeing a Pigeon?

Rich media. It's complex. It's engaging. It's the Bowerbird of online advertising. Some Bowerbirds are more beautiful, more graceful than others - it doesn't matter. What matters is that the Bowerbird knows how to impress. It doesn't rely on large numbers to entice prospective suitors like it's more numerous but less impressive cousin the Pigeon. It does this through nest building. And it's not just about how nice the nest looks - it's about what it contains as well. The nest may look like a small hut (MPU with overlay), or like a maypole (expand skyscraper), but its contents will be of a similar colour to the female Bower it's trying to engage with (like DoubleClick's Page Scraping technology, enabling ad content to change dependent on page context). This is the evolution of the species and if you're lucky enough to have ever seen a Bowerbird, you'll definitely remember seeing it. And I mean really seeing it.

So, back to the question: "If you were reincarnated as an animal, what would you be?". Well if you want to get as many impressions as you can for as little money as possible, throw your stale breadcrumbs all over the internet and come back as a Standard pigeon. At least you won't go hungry. But if you want more bang for your buck-shot, you'd better start aiming for Rich Media and return to this World of Online Advertising as a Bowerbird. A Bowerbird with a 12-gauge shotgun.