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: The ads are boring, intrusive and agencies haven’t a clue how to use the internet. Right? Wrong. Probably you haven't been watching. With an increasing number of advertisers demanding online solutions, agencies are falling over each other to finds interesting ways to tap the medium and connect with the target. Ergo, the online advertising market is growing by leaps and bounds and so are specialist agencies that claim to offer cutting edge solutions to their clients' needs.
Current market stats are just an indication of the shape of things to come. According to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), between 2003-04 and 2005-06, online spends have grown by 286%—from Rs 42 crore to Rs 162 crore (2004-05: Rs 107 crore). This has kept pace with the rise in internet population, which stands at 37 million (as of September 2006). Specialist online agencies like Mediaturf, Quasar, Webchutney Studio, eMaven Solutions, BC Webwise, Indiads, Interactive Aveneus, Communicate 2, Pinstorm, Mediacontacts, Media2Win, WebShastra and Module One have already secured their positions in the advertising market, slugging it out against specialist divisions of traditional full-service agencies, such as, GroupM Interactions and Tribal DDB, among others.
What's drawing many companies to the net is that the real effects of advertising become more measurable. “Almost 60-70% of online advertising today is based on performance,” says Anurag Gupta, executive vice-president and director, Connecturf India. Search engine marketing (pay-per-click) is purely based on performance and today it alone contributes to around 30% of total online advertising spends, he adds.
The fact is many generalist advertising, marketing and web design firms now offer web advertising services. However, it is an “add on” service for most of them (think “upsell”). Ask yourself whether these firms actually offer good value. Some may simply be outsourcing the clients’ work to a specialist firm anyway (which adds to your overall cost). That’s where the specialist start-ups step in offering turnkey solutions—from creative to media placement—at a cost that’s not likely to raise too many eyebrows.
In the offline world it has become commonplace for media buying to be separate from the creative idea and execution. However, online agencies are challenging this separation. A lot of ad agencies are now recruiting skills to create branded content and many are realising that the media planning is often dependent on the creative idea and execution—so perhaps the two need to be much more closely under one...
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