An article in the Financial Express takes the slippery slope, claiming that “analysts” are discussing whether horizontals are back in the online game, based on an increase in Rediff’s net profits. However, the final paragraph of the story raises issues that we’d raised: A. Kumar had pointed out in the comments here that over half of Rediff’s profits are by virtue of interest gains. FE also gets a comment from Manish Agarwal to an issue that I had raised about their top 10 advertisers accounting for a 55 percent of revenues. Agarwal says “There is no long tail as of now. Only when SMEs warm up to the online advertising opportunity we will have large number of advertisers like in West”. Not sure if search marketers would agree.
Also, I don’t think horizontals are “back in the game” in India – they’re just the primary beneficiaries of the much talked about growth in Indian advertising online, particularly for the marketers who’re following the mass-market shotgun approach they do for other media. Marketing on sites like Rediff is also a means of attracting segments to branded sites – Scootygals, Axe and Sunsilk’s Gang of Girls are all doing it – so I guess they’ll always be a part of an online advertising mix.
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