@Digital Summit: Advertorials Online; Search Marketing; Cutting Through The Clutter

During the session on what the Internet can offer as a medium, Rajan Srinivasan, National Head Sales of Web18 defined compelling content as content that is a mix of research and presentation that results in stickiness and repeat usage. A combination of content and a relevant tool, say – financial data and a portfolio tracker – will be sticky. Web18 has content from TV, and are looking at re-purposing it for the PC and the mobile. Revenue can be in the form of advertising real estate, subscription and pay per use, and syndication of content. He also added that branding, as an option online, is under explored.
Krishna Prasad, Executive Producer at MSN India said that consumers are looking to pull data from the Internet, not have it pushed at them. There is a huge market since there are more people online than at any single marketplace in the world. However, online advertising has to be relevant and contextual. He also said that there’s money in editorial product placement since it is trusted more – editorial coverage for product reviews, features etc. I couldn’t disagree with this premise more since the lack of editorial integrity, I feel, is critical. If you sell out, users eventually lose faith (attention spans are low online), even if advertisers will keep hoping that they don’t.
Mahesh Murthy, CEO of Pinstorm, said that India attracts Rs.235 crores of search marketing every year, and put forth a rather convincing case for search marketing – advertisers want targeting, and search marketing allows them that. Around 40,000 advertisers use search marketing. Around half the searches on Google each month have never been searched before, so one needs to use more keywords; creative copy and the context of the landing page tend to generate clicks.
Manish Vij, Business Head of Quasar said that online advertising is clearing the garbage generated by traditional media; online media is more accountable and allows feedback. However, most people do not do due pre-planning. there is a need to monitor click data and viewed data. Unfortunately, people expect too much from Internet advertising, and are not looking to experiment.

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