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CATCHING FANCY

Swetha Kannan
Preethi J.

Bangalore, July 8 After blogs and social networking sites, it’s now the turn of YouTube in the online world. As YouTube is turning out to be a huge rage among the youth, marketers might well want to exploit this tool to its fullest.

YouTube is a Web site that allows users to search for, view and share short videos online.

Over 20 million netizens between 15 and 55 years of age access the site to upload, rate and comment on videos, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

Over 65,000 videos are uploaded per day, and in June, over 2.5 billion videos were watched.

Myspace, Yahoo, Google Videos, AOL and Microsoft’s MSN also offer similar services.

Obviously, the reach and potential of this space is something advertisers cannot ignore in the times to come.

Take for instance, Nike’s commercial on cricket on YouTube, put up about four months ago; this ad has registered nearly two lakh views till date.

Mr Praveen Ramachandra, Business Director (Insights) of Mindshare, a media agency that put up Nike’s commercial on YouTube, says that this medium is slowly catching the fancy of marketers, not to mention viral ads (low cost ads made for the online medium) making their way through e-mails and YouTube screens.

“Ford recently created a low cost ad for one of its SUVs. This medium will definitely catch up,” Mr Ramachandra adds.

IT MNCs such as IBM are targeting the YouTube generation with playful ads, introducing technical concepts such as service-oriented architecture.

Word-of-mouth remains the advertisers’ biggest bet, but this takes on a new meaning online with the medium offering lot of avenues to explore, such as banner advertising, search engine marketing and optimisation, social networking sites and brand microsites.

(Microsites are put up for a short period coinciding with any product launch or event, like ITC Foods’s bingeonbingo.com for its Bingo snack range.)

Mr Sanjay Gangopadhyay, Marketing Director, Nike, said: “For Nike, the digital domain is a critical platform to connect with consumers. The youth today is consuming more and more of its information/entertainment needs from the digital world as opposed to traditional media.”

Nike is very active in this space. “An example of this is our initiative called joga.com – a social site exclusively for the football crazy kid. This site offers footballers across the world a platform to connect with each other.”

Although the potential of the medium is huge, it is largely untapped. Mr Ramachandra said: “Consumer products and brands spend about five per cent of their media budget online. Brands are not giving as much importance to this medium as they should be. There is also a lack of understanding as to what you can do with the medium and which gives the best return on investment. And it is not as though there is a model in the West for marketers here to emulate. The West is also being exposed to all this only now.”

More Stories on : Internet | Online Marketing

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