The online media campaign by L.K. Advani, the prime ministerial aspirant from the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, is among the many high-voltage political activities being undertaken by parties ahead of the general election starting next month. BJP’s online advertisements on Google, the global search engine, are looking to drive traffic to the official blog being written by the octogenarian politician. This online involvement by a mainstream political party comes on the back of growing interest in the medium by a host of companies across sectors such as consumer goods, telecom and technology, all of whom are reaching out to young Indians.
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“This is a viable medium to reach voters (as) it allows one to engage (with them). We are quite interested in providing value on this platform,” says Shailesh Rao, managing director,
Google India. He is bullish about the prospects for his company across multiple online platforms such as search and display ads as well as advertising on mobile phones. “Traditional businesses are noticeably more interested in a medium that is reaching critical mass.”
Creative pitch: The Web is really a form of direct marketing that offers the power of 1:1, says OgilvyOne Worldwide’s Mohanachandran. Ashesh Shah / Mint
In January, Google opened its social networking site Orkut to advertising campaigns. Google’s optimism is shared by other online media companies such as
Yahoo! India Pvt. Ltd, which has hosted nearly 25 new product launches on its website in the last three months. According to Internet marketing research firm
comScore Inc., at the end of December, about 78% of the country’s 50 million online users accessed Yahoo! Mail and instant messaging services in India.
“Google search and Yahoo! are at the top of my media plans at present,” says Vishal Chinchankar, assistant vice-president, Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, or R-Adag.
It’s not as if the digital advertising industry is immune to a slowing economy. According to the Pitch-Madison Media Advertising Outlook for India 2009, Internet or online advertising grew by 45% in 2008 to touch Rs363 crore, accounting for a 1.7% share of the total advertising pie estimated at Rs20,717 crore. The current economic downturn is expected to peg its growth rate down to 25% in 2009—but online advertising will still register the highest growth rate compared with other media such as print advertising (0%), television (7%) and radio (15%). Outdoor media and cinema ad expenditures are actually expected to shrink by 20% and 5%, respectively, according to the report.