Archive notice: This article was originally published on May 27, 2003. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
For the current white paper “The Business Impact of Rich Internet Applications,” the analysts closely examined seven pioneering users in the USA – including the website of the BMW cult car Mini – and evaluated user behavior. Rich Internet applications provide complex user interfaces on the web, interactive communication functions and powerful applications on existing network and corporate infrastructures.
According to the study, for example, the interactive vehicle configurator on the US website of the BMW cult car Mini made a decisive contribution to significantly exceeding the Bavarian automobile group’s set sales targets. Instead of having around 100,000 registered users on the website by the end of 2002 as planned, there were actually 152,000 interested people. Of these, 73 percent assembled their individual Mini model on screen and sent the result by email to friends and acquaintances. Overall, around half of all inquiries to Mini dealers were generated via
this rich Internet application, which was developed by the Euro RSCG Circle advertising agency in Boston with the help of Macromedia Flash MX. A further 35 percent of leads came from the car dealers’ own websites, and the rest from walk-in customers in the showrooms.
Other companies even report revenue increases on the order of 50 percent. All surveyed financial service providers, hotels, retail companies and industrial firms recorded significantly increased visitor interest on their websites and a significant increase in sales figures.