Online advertising spreads its wings

The mailer ad beckons: "Just complete the comic strip with something whacky and amp; walk away with a Playstation 3. Or you can be at your wittiest best and try out Fido girl! If you can think like me and answer like me, you can win a 30 GB iPod."

Or for that matter a contest on MSN: take part in the quiz and look like the star studded cast of Cash. All this and more at a click of a button. Promotional ads and mailers like these are changing the virtual advertising space forever. Realising the potential of the digital medium, an increasing number of corporates today are engaging consumers with not just product advertising, but brand-related contests, gaming, videos, networking and forming online communities for more effective messaging on their websites. The Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Royal Enfield websites are examples.

ZenithOptimedia estimates that online advertising in India just around doubled last year, from Rs 107 crore to Rs 210 crore, and it is expected to increase by more than double this year, to Rs 450 crore. IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association of India) figures seem to support these estimates (see box). Ambika Srivastava, CEO, ZenithOptimedia, says the digital medium is cost effective in a big way. "Very often, advertising is expected to not just generate awareness but to elicit call to action or prompt purchase. When we say ROI, we mean fulfillment of a 'Call to Action' (CTA). A CTA may be explaining features of a new product, or enhancing sales of a brand or it may be an invitation to a select audience for an event. In digital advertising, the target audience is far more filtered and targeted. The delivery of communication itself is very measurable."

Adds Prasanna Singh, COO, Banyan Netfaqs, "In some cases, the time between conceptualisation, running the campaign, and getting results could all be as little as two days." Media planners are of the opinion that with better PC penetration, thanks to decreasing prices and the proliferation of broadband, online advertising and promotions can only rise. Srivastava says, "The online is one medium that inherently generates data. If a person checks the cricket score online, the site knows his geographical location, his computer details. With a little more persuasion, the user can be asked to share his details. Every single activity on the Internet is recorded somewhere or the other, so there is no lack of data. As for metrics, there are ad-networks throughout the world that conduct extensive studies to develop understanding into consumer behavior and deliver relevant ads. Google Adwords is the best example here."

The industry, say market sources, is working on offering a common set of measurement tools to advertisers, likely to be in place by 2008. Besides, there is an industry body in place now, the IAMAI, which acts as an industry lobbying group and seeks to make members work together on standards, credit issues and the like. Besides, advertisers have a variety of proprietary as well as publicly available tools such as the Google Analytics to verify a site's claims.