New media, new ad opportunities

Hindustan Times writes about New Media, New ad opportunities:

Sundararaman K, head of sales, Google India, informs, “The campaign built the concept of a fantasy land that the Axe consumer could visit and be a part of, by registering himself. One of the campaign objectives was to drive consumers to the Axeland website www.cometoaxeland.com.” The Mindshare (HLL’s media agency) team adopted a unique search strategy, choosing keywords that mapped the Axe product and lifestyle, and led to the Axeland website.

Atit Mehta, media director, Mindshare Fulcrum, says, “While Google AdWords accounted for 13 per cent of all impressions, it delivered 37 per cent of the clicks. The targeted nature of AdWords advertising generates a higher response rate and a higher ROI than other modes of Internet advertising.” The average cost per click from Google AdWords was Rs 5.33, but keywords “Axe” and “Axeland” had an average CPC of about 50 paise. The campaign success was evident with 18,000 hits to the website and 1,000 registrations in a single day.

Vivek Paul, director operations, Sound buzz India, states: “Our online and mobile properties around the Asia-Pacific, including India, saw an advertising upturn from Nokia, Motorola, Siemens, MSN and Samsung. Our direct advertising clientele increased 100 per cent in a year.” The Internet and Mobile Association of India estimates ad revenues of Rs 400 crore by end-2007.

Rajiv Hiranandani, co-founder and country head, Mobile2Win, says mobile phone advertising is around two to three per cent of ad budgets. “Mobile advertising is relatively new. It’s up to us to evangalise mobile marketing to brands and media owners.” But mobile phone-based adver tising is catching on. Hiranan dani points to the ongoing Chlormint shortcode campaign.” This is a great way to drive sampling of a new product in very large volumes.” He says that Perfetti, Coke, Pepsi, HLL, Standard Chartered, HSBC and YES Bank have yearly budgets for mobile advertising. “Our car racing game for Castrol where, during the Formula 1 season, we actually embedded the Castrol branding in the form of a pit stop, was effective. Coke has been working with us on various wireless initiatives ranging from shortcode-based campaigns to games, like the Thums Up challenge mobile game. Whirlpool has made mobile marketing a part of every campaign on the shortcode 8558.” Hiranandani says that WAP-based mobile marketing, mobile games with brands embedded into them, and location-based targeting through mobile advertising will do well in the future. He’s very hopeful about growth, given India’s youth power.

New media advertising – Internet, mobile and eventually media-converged digital options – has the power to chart its own course in the future, without competing for space with conventional media. Certainly, it will compete for more advertising budget. The initiatives are just beginning to emerge.