Web portals see rise in ads

- Business Line, 2009, Jan 16th

At a time when sales executives with conventional media firms are grappling with fewer advertisements from corporates, their counterparts with Web portals have their hands full.

The reason: a month’s campaign on an online portal costs Rs 25-50 lakh, whereas the same amount can buy them only few days of ‘full page’ advertising space in newspapers depending on their reach.
Also, a static advertisement on a hoarding can cost Rs 18-20 lakh a month depending on the location and a 10-second advertisement on television costs upwards of Rs 4 lakh.
In a recessionary environment, the first cost-cutting measure employed by corporates is to slash advertising in outdoor media, television and other media as they seek to optimise profits, said Mr Prasanth Mohanachandran, head of Neo@Ogilvy, the digital arm of Ogilvy and Mather.

However, since advertising is an integral market of any company’s marketing strategy they continue to invest in online advertising to get maximum returns.

For, Neo@Ogilvy, online advertising has gone up 30 per cent in the last quarter, said Mr Mohanachandran.
During the Asian financial crisis, the measurable medium was direct marketing. “There was around 60 per cent growth in direct marketing during the early 1990s. This time direct marketing has been replaced by online advertising,” he added.

Customer-specific ads


The ones who are raking in the real moolah are those Web portals which offer advertisers the ability to target certain customer segments such as the youth.

“When you are fropper.com I know your age, I know your profile, your likes, dislikes etc. And, hence, our portal lends itself to custom-based advertising,” Mr Gourav Rakshit, Group Head, Online marketing at People Interactive. Over a six-month period, Fropper has seen a 25 per cent rise in Internet and mobile advertising.

Agrees Mr Diptarup Chakraborti, Principal Analyst with Gartner Research. Rising interest in social networking and blogging last year, has forced several brands to rethink online as a serious medium. For example, several automobile companies and customer services firms are doing soft branding on the Net, he observed.

According to an industry source, several corporates are doing entire campaigns of several of their products online.

Moreover, clients are now asking for annual advertising plans, something that has been completely unheard of in the Indian space, said Mr Rishi Khiani, COO of Web 18.

Web 18, which has around 20 portals in different verticals, has reported a 900 per cent growth in traffic in the wake of the economic slowdown and the Mumbai terror attacks, Mr Khiani said.
Mr Leroy Alvares, Country Head at Tribal DDB India, a digital division of Mudra Communications Pvt Ltd said, “In 2008, video advertisements on the Internet went up by over 70 per cent and this year too it will be the most popular form of advertising as more brands are willing to put video ads on the Internet.”