Microsite Malaise

Ask.com’s Director of Marketing pushes “immersive” microsite tactics against the ropes in an iMedia piece published today. He argues that microsites waste agency resources, typically fall short on expected returns (margin), and are often the result of broken internal process stemmed from the limited support of IT departments and misdirected strategy from the traditional ad agency side.

I’d say that microsites aren’t entirely evil if they are paired with a holistic marketing strategy (a component of a larger campaign). Fragmentation of media and consumer reach, and attention span, has resulted in campaigns with much shorter shelf life than ever before. Typically, microsites live and die with these campaigns.

It’s an interesting argument. The article concludes with a tout for rich media banners as a better investment and a solution for pacifying the “it’s about branding” sect.