The Creative Side

After receiving two emails today from very reputable marketing industry newsletters with “frozen” animated GIF images, I felt I needed to post on this. Unfortunately, Outlook 07 will not render the animation of an animated GIF image… It will only display the first frame.

In the case of the newsletters I received today, the images were from customers who paid for this advertising space. In one newsletter, the image was just a big empty black box.  In the other, an advertisement displayed as a big blue banner with a small logo in the bottom right corner that I’m sure would have remained throughout the animation.

If you are going to use a GIF animation in your email, make sure that you contain any important information in the initial frame.  Look at the first frame as if it was a still image because that is how it will appear to many contacts on your list.  Feel free to continue the animation from there… just don’t start with an empty box!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 10:27 am and is filed under Email Layout, Email Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or use this trackback link from your own site: http://creative.blog.listrak.com/wp-trackback.php?p=32