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by Marion Arathoon and Anushree Chandran

The swine flu scare may be over, but some companies are looking to infuse an A/H1N1 strain—the technical name for the virus—into their advertising.

So, if purchases of Tamiflu, the Roche drug that fights the flu are regulated by the government, what can people do?

Ad inventory: A doctor uses a thermal scanner on a policeman in Mexico. There has been a spike in cold- and flu-related content being put out on websites, and traffic on these pages has also surged.Henry Romero / Reuters

For starters, they can wash their hands more often, says a microsite that is part of the website of Unilever Plc. brand Lifebuoy (www.lifebuoy.com).

“Swine flu? Not in my house. Have no fear with Lifebuoy,” says the microsite. The microsite was commissioned by Unilever to OgilvyOne.

“Lifebuoy globally is doing an educational activity…to educate consumers on how proper hand washing can help consumers protect themselves from swine flu,” said a Unilever spokesperson. “The microsite is one of the initiatives.”

An executive at an Indian agency, who is familiar with the development and who did not want to be identified, also claimed that Procter & Gamble Co. is working on a similar “swine flu” campaign for one of its brands.

Procter and Gamble India Ltd did not respond to emails from Mint on the subject.

Meanwhile, Kimberly-Clark Corp. has just broken ads for its Kleenex antiviral tissues on the swine flu theme in the UK on the back of the government’s mass door drop campaign: “Catch it, kill it, bin it”.

In Lifebuoy’s case, the executive said the microsite was an extension of the brand’s “keep your hands clean” campaign strategy running on traditional media and is part of the brand’s global hand-washing project conducted with the World Health Organization. This digital blitz is expected to have a positive rub-off on sales of liquid handwashing soap in various markets, including India.

The executive added that Lifebuoy plans to extend its campaign to digital screens in major airports across the world, and even on mobile phones of travellers using Bluetooth technology. The brand, he said, would follow up with its ads linked to searches on terms such as travel or Mexico.

There are already clear signs that the virus is set to become the marketing catchword of 2009, especially in the digital realm. According to Jay Sears, executive vice-president of strategic products and business development, ContextWeb Inc., which runs an online exchange for buyers and sellers of ad inventory, there has been a spike in cold- and flu-related content being put out by publishers. Traffic on these pages has jumped from almost zero to 400,000 a day, he claimed.

A similar trend can be seen in India. According to Mahesh Murthy, founder of Mumbai-based digital agency Pinstorm Technologies Pvt. Ltd, there was a 250% increase in volumes of online searches around swine flu around India between 25 April and 2 May. And the searches originate from all over India, even remote locations such as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Another expert said the spike continued well into May.

Tanay Tayal, director (product management) of digital agency Komli Media Pvt. Ltd said that between 26 April and 11 May, there were 1.5 million page views in India of articles on swine flu and at least 400,000 unique users who searched for something related to swine flu.

Till date, though, only international advertisers such as Red Cross and Pig333, a blog on pigs, AOL health advertising and National Public Radio are leveraging this search opportunity, said Murthy. He added that he sees a marketing opportunity here for Indian medical firms and products such as hand washes and disinfectants. Tayal concurs. “This could be an opportunity for pharma companies and companies that are promoting better lifestyle and hygiene.”

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by Abhijeet Mukherjee

Quite unlike his peers in the traditional advertising agencies, Harsha J is grateful for the downturn. As advertising budgets come under intense scrutiny in a depressed market, his Bangalore-based web marketing firm Adventure is making the best of the situation, convincing his clients to increase their spends on the online and mobile platforms.

Adventure designs web-based marketing material such as e-mailers and websites, along with developing and running Google AdWords campaigns for its clients. “Almost two-thirds of our clients are thinking differently now.

Earlier the focus was more on conventional mass media but they gradually realised that online and mobile advertising could be effective and measurable modes to reach their desired target group. We have seen a growth of at least 10-15% over the last couple of months,” he says.

It’s not hard to see why. Compared to television, print, radio and even out-of-home advertising, Internet and mobile based communication is more easily measurable and interactive. And while the share of such media in overall budgets is still small, it’s growing significantly.

A report by IMRB International and the Internet and Mobile Advertising Association of India (IAMAI) estimates that online advertising—including display, search-based and other methods—increased from Rs 425 crore in 2006-07 to Rs 700 crore in the current year. The 250-million mobile user population too makes mobile marketing a lucrative communication channel for brands.

Digital marketing firm Pinstorm estimates that the mobile advertising industry including WAP and SMS has grown from Rs 20 crore in 2006-07 to Rs 50 crore in 2008-09. And while the digital advertising industry has not observed shrinkage its current rate of growth at 24% is slower than the anticipated 35%.

Ask Samsung’s director marketing for South-West Asia YY Kim who’s sold on the benefits of this new age medium. “Online advertising works very well for our technology-based products like MP3 players, notebook PCs, mobile phones, LCD and Plasma TVs. Our online campaign for notebook PCs in November, 2008 was a success as it doubled visitor traffic to one lakh in the following month,” he says. Online advertising comprises 1% of Samsung adspend in India and is likely to grow to 2% this year.

All this spells good news for the scores of startup firms that have emerged around Internet and mobile advertising in India. Aashish Solanki, founder of yet another Bangalore company Net Bramha Studio is among them. It works with other startups to help build their online brand presence from scratch.

“We work for startup companies like Game Kraver, My Piction and Nemo Solutions, helping position them and conducting viral marketing campaigns. It helps them get better ROI,” says Solanki. “Even our big clients like Shell are investing in online advertising.”

Accountability is one of the biggest draws of such tech-based media. “Today every advertiser wants to know where each dollar is being spent and the result of it. In a recessionary time, advertisers move money to more measurable mediums,” says Naveen Tewari, CEO of mKhoj, a mobile advertising firm started two years year ago.

“We have grown 10 times in the last six months and expanded to 25 countries.” mKhoj’s campaign for Reebok involved creating a WAP portal where visitors could participate in a lucky draw to get a phone call from their favorite stars, and also allowed them to locate the nearest exclusive outlet. According to the company’s website, this campaign drove 450,000 visits to the WAP portal, with over 12% of them locating the nearest Reebok store.
“Around 70 to 80 per cent of a brand’s audience can be reached on internet and hence it is up to advertisers, agencies and publishers to churn out innovative ways to address the users effectively. Only then we can hope that the medium can grow faster,” agrees Rahul J Jethva, CEO of Spring Communications, which is also into this space.

“There’s a good 30%-35% cost saving on web vis-a-vis print,” says Subhash Lal of Thinkingdesign, a Delhi-based startup. Launched five months ago by Lal, an NID graduate, the firm provides brand identity, language and strategy services to clients in the fashion, home decor and jewellery businesses.

However, web ads were not a big initial priority for the five-man company. “The downturn forced three or four really good clients to put their plans on hold; others, started insisting on web advertisements instead of print to save on costs,” Lal says. The company is currently designing an online campaign for Taurus, a new women’s wear brand.

What’s even more hot on the scene now is a host of mobile-based applications that enable brands to target customer better, wherever they may be. “There is a high number of mobile and Internet connections and even 3G is round the corner, which would increase activity in that space. With the mobile handset functioning almost like a computer and more user friendly applications available, advertisers see an opportunity for their brands in that space,” says Prathap Suthan, NCD, Cheil Communications.

HSBC conducted a mobile-based promotion with High Networth Individuals (HNIs) at international airports’s departure lounges, offering them applications that would be useful in the country they were travelling to—such as tips on communicating better in the new language or locating a bank branch. According to Vinod Thadani, regional head, mobile, Group M, South Asia, which conducted the campaign for HSBC, a valid database of 14,000 was generated of which almost 30% was converted.

“The reach and engagement of mobile is an important factor for this medium. Initially it used more by the finance and travel industries but in 2008 other sectors like lifestyle, apparels and FMCG also joined in. At least 10-15% of digital ad budgets are now planned for the mobile medium,” says Thadani. But while startups are getting a significant share of the online and mobile advertising pie, he cautions that it could be difficult for them to sustain.

This is because of the infrastructure requirements as well as the reputation that most large to average level advertisers require to put in their money. “Another challenge, especially for mobile advertising companies is providing a non-intrusive platform as they are considered very personal media,” he adds.

According to Suresh Narasimha, co-founder of TeliBrahma, a provider of Bluetooth-based communication services to brands, the penetration of Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones is increasing. He says acceptance of Bluetooth advertising is 10-15% in retail locations, 30 – 40% in hangout places and more than 60% in events.

“There’s more value in digital media, and brands can benefit if they can integrate planning and measurement. Small companies would benefit with increased penetration and change in the mindset,” he says.

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by Raghuvir Badrinath

With new policies supporting foreign investments and provision of fiscal incentives, the influx of multinational companies (MNCs) in the country is increasing by the day. But this does not seem to deter Indian digital marketing players.

Instead, Indian companies such as Pinstrom, Ybrant Technologies and Communicate2 are firming up strategic plans to take on the competition.

In India, according to Zenith Optimedia, the digital market is expected to grow from Rs 210 crore in 2006 to Rs 2,250 crore by 2008.

Given the huge potential, global digital marketing companies such as WPP, Euro RSCG and Publicis Groupe are planning to aggressively tap the Indian market through acquisitions. The global digital marketing spends are over $40 billion.

While WPP has already acquired a 75 per cent stake in Delhi-based digital marketing and web solutions company Quasar Media early this year, French advertising agency Publicis Groupe and Euro RSCG too are looking at acquiring companies here.

Says Mahesh Murthy, founder and CEO of Mumbai-based search engine marketing company, Pinstrom, “The launch of digital arms of WPP, Publicis, Euro, etc will have little or no impact in the Indian market, as these firms traditionally have little or no digital competence anywhere else in the world. Hence, we don’t see any challenge from non-Indian MNCs as yet. At best, their arrival will grow the markets.”

As far as acquisitions go, he says, the weaker firms in the country have already been acquired and there aren’t very many left.

“When we pitch for clients, whether we do so from our offices in Beijing or San Francisco or Singapore or India, we almost never see these MNCs as finalists or even contenders. They are not even known or visible to the serious spenders there and the clients feel that they are not being adequately served in their markets. They may start turning up in future and we will be ready for them by growing organically and through acquisitions, to fulfil our clients’ needs,” he says.

Pinstorm has six offices in five countries, and it plans to double this number in the next two years. “We also have a slew of in-house technologies that few others in the world possess. That coupled with our pay-for-performance focus will continue to help us lead against old-world MNCs in this new age of marketing,” Murthy adds.

Echoing his views is M Suresh Reddy, chairman and managing director of Hyderabad-based emarketing solutions company, Ybrant Technologies, who believes that having more players in the space would help increase awareness about the potential of digital marketing.

Ybrant already competes with a number of global players in various markets, and a major portion of its revenues comes from outside of India. It had acquired three companies – US-based MediosOne and AdDynamix, and VoloMP, the flagship product of Serbia-based Seenietix.

It is in the process of completing the acquisition of Israel-based Ordian, even as it is in the advanced stages of discussion with four other companies for acquisition. At least, three deals are expected to be seized in the next six months.

“Ybrant has strategic business reasons for making these acquisitions across the world. There are two main drivers behind our inorganic growth strategy – capability and geography. We are looking for strategic fits that enable us to be the end-to-end digital marketing solutions provider. We are also looking for companies that have strong sales presence in various markets in the world,” he says.

Vivek Bhargava, founder and managing director of Mumbai-based SEM firm Communicate2, feels that it makes sense for the global majors to acquire local digital agencies that have expertise in the domain.

“In most of the world markets, either the local digital marketing agencies have been acquired or they still continue to dominate their local markets. To be able to do so, the biggest strength would be the execution ability of a company, besides technologies and its team size. Over the last four years, Communicate2 has built tens of search applications that are geared to operate in the Indian environment. We have built a team size of nearly 125 people, and our aim is to be a 1,000-people search firm in the next two to three years. All this would help us dominate the market place in India and give a competitive edge over MNCs,” he says.

Communicate2 acquired a minority stake in a company that focuses on search technologies. “We will continue to look for companies that are focused in the search space. We are also looking for companies in the US and the UK markets who have a large SME customer base,” Bhargava adds.

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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.

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By Mahesh Murthy

It was 3:45 in the morning and the train with 120 of my colleagues was drawing up outside a tiny station in Goa. Except we didn’t know which tiny station it was. The platform wasn’t lit, and we had buses waiting to transport the gang away at the correct station—if indeed it was the correct one—and we’d been warned that the train would stop for all of two minutes. There wasn’t a soul on the platform and no one else was getting off the train, so there was no one to ask. It was a bit of a geo-existential conundrum—till one of us pulled out his iPhone, took a map reading using the cellphone-tower-signal thingy and told us it was not this station but the next.

What was surprising was not that this feat was greeted with applause, but that it wasn’t. We all took it for granted that somehow the Internet would answer all the questions.

My 10-year-old was in tears the other day because his thumb drive was missing. Not that he is the most organised kid in the world—or even in his class—but he was mollified only when he figured out how to e-mail his project presentations to himself on his Gmail account so that he could not only never lose the file but also access anything he needed from any place. His big smile was in figuring out that he didn’t need his pen drive to get marks on his homework.

I was fiddling around with my LinkedIn account the other day when I figured out that Bill Gates was just two connections away—not even the proverbial six degrees of separation that we used to talk about just a couple of years ago. Barack Obama and John McCain are closer—only one connection away. A George W. Bush was online, and somewhat reassuringly out of my network. I had also just chatted with Ekta Kapoor, who I know only as a buddy on Facebook, about the cancellation of <em>Kyuunki</em>. I get pinged once a week by some stranger who wants to get funded or to join the company—and many of them end up getting exactly what they ask for.

The world was never so accessible. I’m sure each of you has your share of such wonderful stories. But it’s not all rosy —there is an entirely new set of downsides. One of the kids who bullied my son and got beaten up for it went online and got him locked out of his Club Penguin social network by spoofing his presence and using abusive language—imagine that, a 11-year-old cyber-criminal! And cyber-harassment cases by both genders are now run of the mill, at least in India, according to my friends at the cybercrime cell in Mumbai.

Maybe it’s a depressing cliche that I’m beginning to sound like just another 40-plus who looks on wide-eyed and amazed at the world and tries to hanker for the good old days. I don’t actually. I think these are the good new days, and things are just beginning to get better.

But even as someone who runs a company that specialises in helping brands become more visible online, I often wonder about this universal accessibility. I now think there is a certain value in being inaccessible. I do believe that scarcity creates value—and how does one create scarcity and value for people, for places, for companies, when everything is just a few clicks away?

How distant is Mount Everest when there’s a webcam with the team climbing it? How do you keep secret the news of a special beach that you’ve just discovered, a romance you don’t want your parents to find out about, a place for fried fish that you just want to keep to yourself? Maybe there’s room for the art of anti-SEO (the opposite of search engine optimisation), through which you can succeed in getting something off the grid, or in staying off and not being searched, found or written about.

Maybe the rest of the online world can have more of a setting like I have on my instant messenger accounts: ‘Invisible’, meaning ‘I can see you, but I don’t want to be seen’. Not just yet.