We wrote about our annual off-site earlier and talked about how much fun it was. We also told you that we’d write about the Amazing Race, which turned out to be the most exciting activity of the trip. Deepali Panjabi, our wizard from the Delivery section was roped in to give you her experience of the events that unfolded that day:

The Reach Camp – our very own Amazing Race in Goa. Actually it was better than the Amazing Race because there was no selection of people who would take part in it. Everyone had to be part of the race. Why? Because this was our last training activity at our Off-site of ’08.

The race was quite simple – everyone would get dropped off at a common spot and each team (all Pinstormers were already split into 12 teams, each consisting of between 7 to 9 people) along with the ‘Outdoor Expert’ (OE) would have to travel from one point to another across Goa. Sounds simple doesn’t it. It was actually easy except for a few ‘catches’

• Each team was given one map.
• Each team member was given Rs.20
• Each team member was given 1 litre of water
• Each team member was given 1 packet of Tiger biscuits
• There was a time limit of 19 hours from the drop off to the final destination.
• At no point in time was any member of the team to be separated from the group.
• Only 1 mobile phone per team was allowed and this couldn’t be used except to call the organizers and find the next destination to get to once we were at our destination.

Think 19 hours is a lot? Well not for 80 kilometres. YES! 80 kms was the distance we had to cover with only a few packets of biscuits and few litres of water. Of course water and biscuits could be purchased as could accommodation but really what can you do with Rs.140 -Rs.160 for 7-8 people? The organizers were a little nice to us and said that we could buy from them water, biscuits and blankets (remember 19 hours) at discounted rates.

So at around 5:30 P.M. we got dropped at our drop-off point and given our first checkpoint of the race, a distance of 4 kms. Obviously most of us thought we had to walk the race and figure out ways to find cheap travel means, etc. but our OE very correctly told us that we could decide between walking, taking a bus or hitching a ride. We decided hitching a ride is the best thing to do and so did every other team. So here we are on this road, some 100 odd people, all pointing their thumbs outs for a ride. Imagine the scene: Pinstormers from the world over, screaming out to truck drivers the location of where we wanted to go.

Now the post talks about my team specifically and what happened to us. I don’t remember the names of all the places we stopped at but it’s the journey that counts. My team consisted of Netra, Savita, Jigar, Manish, Jayant, Vinod, our OE, Rahul and myself.

The first van that stopped for us was filled with 6 – 7 people but the driver allowed us to get in. Now that van could have taken about 3 extra people but guess how many jumped in… EIGHT! That turned out to be a crazy ride with Rahul and Vinod standing on the edge of the van and holding on for dear life. Okay that’s a little exaggeration but if they did slip, there would be major injuries. I have been in cramped cars many times but never like this. The people who were already sitting inside couldn’t understand what was happening. They couldn’t understand the concept behind this race/competition and having no money and only biscuits and a long distance to cover.

All said and done, they were great. I bet they were super happy when we got off at our stop. We gave hearty thanks to the driver and he just kept laughing.

At the next checkpoint, we saw another team just in front of us getting into a mini truck and we ran to catch them. While running, I was on the phone with Shekhar (organizer) asking him for the next stop. By the time we got to the truck, they drove off and we started to stick our thumbs out, all over again.

We got into this Sumo and it was brilliant because this guy was going in the same direction that we had to go and therefore ended up dropping us at the next four checkpoints! Of course each time we got to a stop, all of us had to get off and make the man wait till we got the name of the next checkpoint. He was a nice man. An electoral officer if I remember correctly. By the time he dropped us off, I bet he wasn’t thinking nice things about us :)

What was funny was when we explained to the drivers why we needed the lift. They were all shocked at how a company can set up such a task and let us out loose in Goa with no money.

We went on like this for quite a while, some times ahead of teams, sometimes behind teams. The few things that everyone in the team did for the first time which we never thought we would do were -

• Being driven around by a millionaire in his Maruti SX4.
• Ride on coconuts – yup a truck was transporting coconuts and we just got on top of them.
• Ride inside a truck – with the driver, cleaner and eight other team-mates crammed in the front of the truck!

Eventually, only two teams finished the whole race and got to the last checkpoint. All the other teams did not have that privilege because the cops found a couple of teams hitching ride and were not amused. They were pissed because Goa after 10pm can be quite deserted especially some of the roads that were on our course. And hitching rides especially in trucks isn’t really safe. So the game had to be stopped and all the teams except the ones that finished were transported back by the organizers. Unfortunately for the 2 teams that finished, they had to start walking back towards the hotel. Having finished the race and sitting on the sidewalk for an hour and a half and seeing nearly no traffic pass by, to be told that we have to walk back to the hotel cause there are problems with the cops, was not fun. But what can I say, fortune favours the brave. After about 10 – 15 minutes of walking, we found a mini-bus come along our way. And the driver dropped us to our hotel. Of course he got paid for it.

Anyways, there was great learning from the whole activity. For all those who were involved. Some of the most important lessons from the race are those that apply to nearly everything in life.

1) All of us went into the race thinking it was the worst thing to do and impossible to complete. It wasn’t. It was way easier than we expected and a lot more fun that we thought possible. Life is always different from behind the start line. Only once you start running do you see things as they really are. Being uselessly worried about things before you know enough to be worried is foolish and unproductive.

2) Our preconceived notions can hold us back. Every single person in the race was amazed at how helpful the people of Goa were. No one entered the race believing that we would get the kind of help we got. I mean most of us, as a strategy, had decided to stop trucks because car owners would obviously not take us. We were horribly wrong! I later heard of teams that got up to 8 members into Santro’s and Maruti 800′s.

3) No matter what you do and how you do it, you are creating an experience, a memory. It will stay with you for life (unless you get amnesia) and each of these memories will be cherished when you look back at them.

4) If you work together and really hard, you can surpass anyone’s expectations. We had up to 19 hours to finish the race. The teams that did finish the race did it within 7 hours. Not one single person in any group thought about where they would stop and rest for the night. Even at 11 a lot of tired teams decided only to push further rather than stop for the night and start in the morning.

You can find more about the Pinstorm 2008 off-site here.

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by Ratan K K

When I look at marketing campaigns, both, those I am working on, as well other campaigns in the media, the one segment that is targeted over and over again is the urban youth.

Today, the youth form more than 50% of India’s population and those living in cities are a growing percentage among them.

It is not surprising, then, that so many brands are targeting urban youth, as they are the ‘mavens’ or experts who can create a buzz around the brand.

The youth are also a digitally-savvy group, who give ample evidence of their participative tendency at social media forums.

They also tend be the ‘early adopters’, and given their use of the digital medium and social media computing habits, the momentum of the buzz they can create is phenomenal.

As a marketer, I worked with a client whose target audience is urban youth. After realising that the urban youth consume only digital media, the client moved his entire brand and marketing budget online. And yes……….. [please find the complete article here*]

*Pinstorm adheres by the 3DSyndication Policy set by the  Diligent Media Corporation Ltd.

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by Satrajit Sen

When the concept of internet marketing was introduced in India, various digital marketing agencies held that measurability is the prime USP (unique selling proposition) of advertising through this medium.

This very concept of measurability has probably thwarted the growth of online display advertisements as many advertisers feel that this format of online advertisements cannot be measured and hence they prefer to use the online medium for lead generation activities, rather than to build brands.

Display advertising can be defined as another type of online branding that normally contains graphic information, apart from text, like logos or any other pictures. The advantage of online display advertising is that it makes use of static or animated pictures and media that may include audio and video elements.

Many feel that display ads can encourage a brand’s potential customer to interact with the advertisement and spend time engaging with the brand. But at a time when TV is seen as a perfect medium for carrying out a brand building campaign, online display advertisements in India probably have a long and hard way to go.

In an effort to gauge what the industry feels about the future of online display advertisements in India, AlooTechie spoke to experts who appeared to be a bit sceptical about the future of this format of online advertisement in this country.

“Display ads have been in India for almost 10 years now and it is the fault of the online ad industry that display ads have been side-swiped and overtaken by search ads and that too to a point where search is almost double the size of display. If the industry continues to market display ads in the present way, then it will be hard for us to grow beyond a certain level,” holds Mahesh Murthy founder and CEO of Pinstorm.

According to Murthy, display ads have been so far sold on a ‘silly’ metric called CPM (cost per thousand impressions) and the basics of ad selling were ignored.

In India there is a prevalent conception that an online campaign cannot be helpful in building a brand and hence online display advertisements are being affected. “Media planners think that brand building can only be done through TV and hence they go for search based advertisements on the internet. They fail to understand that internet is not a medium where one can carry on a campaign; rather internet is all about intercepting the audience 24×7 to make a purchase decision. This is the only reason why display ads are ignored in the country,” says Manish Vij, co-founder of Quasar Media.

“Without going for the click-based model, media planners should use some ad-serving tools and gauge the view-through traffic of a display ad. Unless they do it, display ads will not emerge successfully in the country,” adds Manish Vij.

Though display ads are yet to catch up the pace in India, the concept has been well accepted worldwide. “The concept of display ads around the world is changing. Roll-overs, road blocks and peel-overs are already in great demand over regular mastheads of websites across the world,” asserts Gautamm Mehra, head, search and affiliate, Ignitee. “India is also not far behind but online marketers should sell these benefits to advertisers and avoid falling for the ‘performance pay’.”

According to Navneet Kaushal, founder and CEO, PageTraffic, online display ads have not only benefited manufacturers but they have proved to be a lucky charm for advertising agencies as well. “The worldwide revenue generated from online display ads in first nine months of 2008 were $17.3 billion, which was greater than $15.2 billion of revenue generated in the previous year. This is evident that display advertisements are quite well accepted around the world and Indian internet industry, sooner or later, has to adopt this trend,” says Kaushal.

However, media planners seem more comfortable deciding their media budgets around search based advertisement models. “In the case of reduced advertising budgets, it always makes better sense for a media planner to utilize more efficient channels that include search, mobile and social media. Going by the way media buyers are looking at online display ads, we feel that display ads will consume significantly lower portion of the total Indian digital marketing budget in 2009 as compared to 2008,” says Vivek Das, business head, Ishir Digital .

“Display ads will need to be more interactive, and engaging than before in order to be able to deliver better. Contextual display advertising such as mashups are more relevant in the current scenario. Improvement in ad serving algorithms led by publishers upping the ante on digging deeper for demographics is of utmost importance,” adds Vivek Das.

It is believed that the global economic slowdown has not affected the online advertising industry too much as international luxury brands have been spending on online advertisements as advertising in the online medium is relatively cheaper than advertising in other media. Recently, Swiss luxury watch brand Tag Heuer unveiled a ‘subtle’ online campaign where one gets to see its prominent logo displayed besides a watch placed near the masthead of select web portals, including Business-Standard.com.

Experts feel that though this recessional period has not been too harsh on digital advertising industry, display ads have been neglected all throughout. “If marketed properly, display advertisements have a great opportunity in this country, but many marketers are yet to understand this and feel that traditional display banners will not work in the internet. And now, when the economy is going through a turmoil, it seems tough for display advertisements to come good in India,” says Amar Goel, founder and CEO, Komli Media.

Agencies like Pinstorm have created their personalized means of promoting display advertisements in this phase of global economic depression. “At Pinstorm, we are among the largest buyers of digital media in India and we have had to create a different metric called ‘cost per impact’ which helps us to buy display more accountably and sensibly. We urge display ad sellers to change the way they have always done things, if they want to survive and thrive after this economic downturn,” says Mahesh Murthy of Pinstorm.

“Unless media planners drastically change the way display ads are sold, publishers will be toast in this economic slowdown. An IMRB survey earlier predicted a 40 per cent increase in display ad revenues. We differ. We predict zero growth to shrinkage in this medium in this financial year. However, we think search will grow in this economic climate,” adds Murthy.

According to Gautamm Mehra of Ignitee, the recessional period has affected online display advertisements to a great extent. “Due to this recession, many publishers are forced to sell inventories at lower CPL (cost per lead) and thus end up earning 1/3rd than what they would have earned on CPM. They do this just to keep the inventory rolling or else they suffer having too much wastage of available inventory. This is because search budgets are usually eating into regular display inventory every single day and hence publishers should be more careful with display inventory,” adds Mehra.

Navneet Kaushal of PageTraffic feels that display ads can prove as a product’s affordable branding solution even in the current recessional phase. “When the entire world is suffering from economic slowdown, it becomes essential for companies to keep promoting themselves in order to maintain a brand rapport. As lower prices will attract more advertisers, the online publishers might have to do some adjustments with their profit margins,” suggests Kaushal.

Travel website MakeMyTrip.com had recently carried out an experiment to assess whether online display advertisements have any impact on a brand’s performance and hence pulled off all its display ad campaigns from other websites.

“The experiment was on for a few days and we saw that our traffic and transaction on the website went down. Even our search traffic was affected a bit,” says Sachin Bhatia, co-founder, MakeMyTrip. “Then, when we took the display campaign back live, surprisingly a lot of direct traffic began to come on the site. That made us believe that display ads are meant to give an identification of your brand in the consumer’s mind.”

According to Sachin Bhatia, display ads help in creating the recall value of a brand in the consumer’s mind and hence can be a useful option for brand building. He feels that in this recessional period brands will prefer the search based option of online advertisements, but if marketed smartly, display ads can definitely be successful in India.

“Brands have to make it clear what they want from the advertisement. If they want branding, they might well go for online display ads and if they want transaction and performance, search based advertisements would be best suited. So every medium has its own viewers and display also has its viewers. But the problem is unless display ads are marketed and projected smartly, no one is going to look at that,” adds Bhatia.

It’s quite evident that the Indian internet industry has so far failed to leverage the benefits that display advertisements have to offer. Even the most conservative clients such as political parties, who are keen to build their brand image and thus go on spending heavily on banner ads, are coming to internet but through various other mediums. If marketed well, these new clients could have been attracted towards online display advertisements.