The Hindu Business Line : The boom pops up

A FUTURISTIC mobile phone crops up on an ad banner to dazzle a 20-something as he's about check his e-mail. Fervent about future investment, a middle-aged executive clicks on mutual fund promotions on a finance portal. Across the virtual domain, marketers launch a blitzkrieg of online contests and sleek pop-unders, swelling sites' revenues.

Here are some facts from the Internet and Online Association of India (IOAI): Valued at Rs 42 crore in 2003-04, the online ad segment swelled to Rs 107 crore in 2004-05, a 155 per cent jump. In 2002-03, it stood at Rs 34 crore.

The statistics from mass portals also seem buoyant. MSN India's year-on-year ad revenues have grown 100 per cent, says Rajnish R., Head (Marketing and Business initiatives), MSN India. Following a 40 per cent ad revenue growth in 2003-04, Sify.com is looking forward to substantial growth this year.

Cyber Campaigns

Among communications group Percept IMC's clients, financial services and entertainment companies are the biggest spenders on online ads. The ad agency had earlier unveiled a mix of online ads, blogs and e-learning tools to market a mutual fund. "The exercise was integrated with a CRM application which resulted in a large audience being registered with us for new offerings and updates," says Ajay Upadhyay, Vice-President (Corporate Affairs), Percept.

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co advertises on financial portals such as moneycontrol.com and transaction sites to tap select audiences online. "Online advertising has proven cost-effective because it allows one to closely target the audience in a relatively clutter-free environment," adds Sujit Ganguli, Head-Marketing, ICICI, Mumbai. However, the Internet currently makes up only a small portion of its ad spends as the company has a `multi-media' approach to promote its products.

Surfers get to interact with various financial service providers and compare various brands on the Internet. For instance, HDFC has gained new customers for product lines such as personal and NRI loans through online ads. Citing a 15-20 per cent increase in Web site traffic, Ajay Kelkar, Vice-President, Head-Marketing, HDFC Bank, says that the Internet has enhanced the bank's brand recall and global reach.

Consumer durable majors too have kick-started online campaigns. Samsung India launched an online contest for its notebook PCs. As part of the campaign, banners were put up on MSN, Yahoo and Rediff that took users through a demo test. To top it off, agency Quasar Media used the viral marketing concept where each participant would invite friends to participate in the contest.

About 50,000 users participated in the Samsung organised contest. "The engaging creatives generated an appeal for the lifestyle-focused product from Samsung," explains R. Zutshi, Deputy Managing Director, Samsung India. He affirms that brand awareness is growing through cost-effective online initiatives — "whether it is product-specific or it is linked with our corporate /marketing initiatives like IIFA / festival promotions."

Urban, educated buyers in the SEC-A, 20-40 age group are currently the target audience on the Internet for Samsung and HDFC.

Sify, on its part, has witnessed greater brand awareness among its users. The site ran a 45-day campaign when furniture brand Gautier was being re-launched as Style Spa. "After the campaign, 80 per cent of the audience were able to recall the brand," points out K. Sundararaman, Head-Sales and Alliances, Sify.com.

Having garnered a favourable response for the online campaign — The Contender show — AXN India is keen on launching more Web-based promotions. While the AXN banners on consumer sites engage viewers with contests or click-throughs, the ads on trade portals like Indiantelevision.com, Exchange4media.com and Agencyfaqs.com are more staid.

As Rohit Bandhari, the Assistant President, Sony Entertainment India, puts it, "Most of our campaigns see a selection of at least two sites in both the consumer and trade categories, as it helps us take care of exclusive users and also generate higher frequency through the duplication that happens between sites."

Tinsel town is getting wired to reach out to young viewers. IOAI estimates that the share of online ad revenues contributed by the entertainment segment is poised to go up to 10 per cent in 2006-07 from a meagre 1 per cent in 2002-03. Following an online marketing campaign for a series of movies, Percept is considering launching offers such as freebies, interactive PC games as well as mobile and online contests for target audiences.

Annoying pop-ups have made way for smart pop-unders (a type of window which appears behind a Web page that a user sees). "Pop-up ads are not a great consumer experience and lead to lower customer satisfaction," says MSN's Rajnish. Sify.com has registered a high click-through rate for pop-unders, as they are less intrusive.

Banners have rich media formats, thanks to low-cost bandwidth services. Among Percept's current online ad formats are superstitials (interactive, non-banner ads, featuring full animation, sound and graphics) and interstitials (which appear in a separate browser window, usually with large graphics and applets). Ajay Upadhyay notes that mobile applications and Web games are emerging as powerful ad tools.

To the delight of cash-strapped advertisers, online ad rates have plummeted by 40 per cent since 2000. The market rates for banners range from Rs 100 to Rs 450 at the cost per thousand reached (CPM).

Soshkeles (large ad formats that are displayed in the main area of pages) are advertised at a per day rate of Rs 35,000 to Rs 3 lakh depending upon the sales volume. Web publishers have inked monthly deals for side panels at rates of Rs 15,000 to Rs 4 lakh.

Under a strategic tie-up with Google, Sify has drawn revenues from sponsored links. The portal has also leveraged on Google's `ads-for-search' and `ads-for-revenue' modules. Sponsored links on search engines are increasing, as they reach right target audiences, explains Ajay Upadhyay.

Tech geeks keep tabs on the returns on ad investments through bits and bytes. To gain a better insight into consumer behaviour, Web analytics are used to check the viewing patterns of sites and search queries. "The online medium is precision-driven when compared to television and print," adds Preeti Desai, President of IOAI.

HDFC, for instance, factors in ad server and Web server reports to gauge the response to its ads. AXN's agency media2win gave a regular update of the number of gross impressions and click-through conversion for the Contender campaign. Percept IMC has employed the analytics tool `Web trends' for studying browsing habits. "We can measure the RoI for most of our clients and provide them with detailed statistics and information," says Upadhyay.

With such hi-tech market research, can the Internet give traditional media players a run for their money? IOAI estimates that the online ad segment will grow to Rs 218 crore in 2006-07. Preeti Desai says that the number of netizens in the country will reach 100 million by 2007 due to the widespread use of cyber cafes and mobiles. Contrary to the popular notion that cyberspace is a niche medium confined to the metros, IOAI has revealed that 49 per cent of India's netizens are outside the top eight cities.

Currently, 5 per cent of HDFC's ad spends are allocated to Internet marketing. However, Ajay Kelkar is bullish on the medium and anticipates a higher allocation in future. Till then, watch out for more splashes of ad creativity and soaring spends on the Web.

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