Marketing Ganga

Author: Shabbir Chunawalla

  • Online Portals of News

    On Internet, there are online portals which cover multiple interests from politics, to sports, to entertainment. In fact, these could be considered as counterparts of a newspaper in print or a news channel on TV. Most of these websites are less than three years old. They can also cover the live events, e.g. the recent Bihar assembly elections with the help of smart phones, dispensing with the OB van set up. They are speedier and quickly accessible. They are less intrusive. Some popular portals are The Quint, The Wire, Quartz, Scroll and Catch News. There are video too on such portals with analytical articles. Such portals attract traffic — of course small, say from a few million unique visitors. Such portals are accessed on smart phones. Most users are young. They adopt a fresh approach to news — they are bold. Their content may not be available in the mainstream media. It is independent of conventional media. They attempt democratization of news. They are facing competition from the established conventional media, say ndtv.com or times ofindia.com. The established companies get the cost benefits of an already existing infrastructure.

    Most of these websites employ a batch of reporters, say some 80 reporters are working for Quint to cover politics, sport and entertainment on the lines of  a mainstrean newspaper. The audience of these web sites is young and drawn from smart phone users and social media users. Online, it is to produce once and distribute endlessly. This is an advantage. Online sites too have started giving analytics of their audience to attract advertisers. It is still a moot point whether the business model of online news sites will sustain quality journalism. Such quality can be sustained if they are paid for or are subsidized. Indian sites solicit subscriptions and donations.

  • Enhanced Advertising

    In the last five years, the growth of the base of advertisers is  remarkable — there were around 10 thousand advertisers in 2010, whereas in 2015, there are about 12,500 advertisers. Much of this growth is led by the new economy companies — e-commerce entities, start ups and internet-enabled services. There is good growth in regional advertising too.

    The ratio of India’s advertising expenditure to GDP continues to be small — at 0.35 per cent. Other emerging countries like China (0.50 per cent), Russia (0.57 per cent) and Brazil (0.77 per cent) are better. The enhanced advertising activity may increase its share in GDP in future.

  • Online Advertising Fraud

    It is a fact that online advertising industry is expected to a fraud that costs it several billion dollars. There are efforts to regulate this by announcing of certification of legitimate publishers and advertisers. This certification programme is called TAG or Trustworthy Accountability  Group. TAG will basically certify companies who create ads and web sites which display them.

    You may wonder why an advertiser himself is not able to judge the quality of the web site. In practice, ads are sold often in automated auctions in vast networks. These networks have a huge scale  and are opaque. They can serve as traffic laundering operations for criminals. An advertiser may get ripped off on business alone on one of these networks. It is difficult to say whether the network was in the know of things or should have known them.

    It is an effort to make the middlemen accountable. Whether this succeeds or not depends how TAG wards off companies that violate the basic standards from getting the certification. They have fixed a fee of $ 10000 which will be waived for smaller firms.

  • Ad Blocking

    Advertising in digital format has spiraled out of control.Users resent this proliferation. Users are also concerned about the privacy issues. Ads in print and TV are not so unwelcome. Even if they are, people put up with them. People have have opted for ad blockers. But then how the online publishers could survive without the ads? And who decides which ads are to be blocked? When ads are blocked publishers will have to find alternative way to reach the people and monetise their inventory. There may be a return to affliate-links and revenue share models. There may be increase in native advertising. As more content on mobiles is seen on apps, ad blockers may not be effective. They are not effective on social net-works too. One valid reason for ad blocking is the use of personal data to customise ads. However, millennials have issues with the quantity of the ads. Some softwares block ads that violate the privacy.

  • Comedians in Advertising

    Comedians do command a reach that is important for advertisers. A comedian as such takes anti-establishment stance. He is away from mainstream. Does his coming closer to brand dilutes his artristic capability ?  Could they be as acerbic and edgy? Comedians have not ventured into advertising. It is advertising that is coming closer to comedians. Comedy’s freedom cannot be had in advertising. Still comedians have realised that one way to make money is to be involved with the brands. Brands could sponsor comedy too. It all depends on the content. It should be  engaging enough . A corporate show takes you beyond the obscenity and insulting people. A person has to learn how to keep the integrity intact in different spaces. AIB has launched an advertising division — Vigyapati.

  • Media & Entertainment (M&E) Industry in India

    Indian media and entertainment industry has the potential to emerge as a $ 100 billion industry ( Rs. 65000 crore ). At present, it is Rs. 115,500 crore industry. It accounts for 1.7 per cent of the GDP and provides employment to around 5 million people. The number of films made in India every years is the highest — 1950 films in 2014. It is the second largest print industry and the third largest TV viewership base. The digital devices, now at 250 million, will reach 600 million by 2020, providing a big boost to digital media. In the developed world the digital media has cannibalised the traditional media. It has hurt print and music the most. TV, films and radio have been affected to a lesser extent by the digital media. In India, the traditional media is also very economical.The monthly subscription of newpapers cost hardly $ 2 — $ 5 in India, whereas it is $ 20 in the US. Media consumption hours in India are less than those in the developed market. India’s M & E sector could equal India’s IT sector in a few years. The government has to provide the enabling environment.

  • ASCI

    Advertising Standards Council of India ( ASCI ) completed 30 years of its existence in October 2015. It is a self-regulatory body. It has a contract with TAM for monitoring print and TV ads. It scans around 10,000 print ads and 350 TV ads each week. It enables ASCI to spot errant advertisers in small towns and cities, taking action against them on its own. It is looking for a digital agency to monitor online ads. It will soon sign agreements with Union Health Ministry,  the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India to process complaints on misleading advertisements.

  • Abra : Silicon Valley Virtual Cash Start Up

    Abra is a virtual cash start up from Silicon Valley. You can say it is bitcoin from Silicon Valley. It is a crypto currency. This application enables users to store digital cash and send money to any smart phone. It uses a new network of human ATMs called Abra tellers. These tellers are individuals or businesses earning money by buying and selling digital cash to and from any consumer through the Abra app. It also uses blockchain to evolve money transfer. A merchant tied up to Abra can allow a consumer to pay for any product or service by typing in the mobile number at check out. Authorization and settlement happens as soon as the consumer confirms the transaction through the Abra app. Ratan Tata and Amex has invested in this start up.

  • Ad Free YouTube

    Alphabet’s YouTube currently is ad supported service, which has more than 1 billion viewers around the world. They are launching in October 2015 in the US a service that will allow viewers to watch videos without interruption from advertisements. The service will be available on a subscription of $ 10-a-month. It will be called YouTube Red. The effort offers a new source of revenue for YouTube and its video creators. YouTube is negotiating with the content creators to bring them on board. Users who sign up for YouTube Red through Apple’s app store will pay $ 13 a month. Majority of revenue will go to video creators. Currently, the ad supported YouTube keeps 45 per cent of  revenue. YouTube Music app is now available with ads, but for YouTube Red subscribers it will be without ads.

  • Mobile App Advertisers

    A research agency eMarketer works in this area. It expects mobile app advertising to reach $ 100 billion worldwide in market spend by 2016. By 2019, it may reach $ 200 billion. By 2018, in India mobile app ads are likely to reach $ 1 billion. Marketers have to focus on the effectiveness of such ads. In digital and later mobile advertising, various technique have been put forward as per the advances of technology.

    To begin with ads were purchased by their placemats on a weekly basis. This was not efficient and transparent. It was difficult to measure ROI. Later, digital advertising was judged on the basis of impression basis, or cost per mille ( CPM ). It was judging ads on the basis of performance. Later, a still more refined method on cost per click method ( CPC ) was adopted.

    Thus the payment flow to the publishers of advertising, was on the basis of the number of impressions/ views or clicks on the website. Even this method was not considered efficient as there were issues of conversions.

    On mobile now the latest method is mobile cost per install ( CPI ). Advertisers here pay for the installs they receive, and there is no conversion risk. What is the guarantee that these installed apps will be used ? A user may not use it at all. It is what happens after the install that is crucial. It is a challenging task.

    These days post- install activity is tracked, to determine whether the traffic is useful for the advertiser. The actual purchases can be counted. Advertisers track the proxy events too  to get the clues about the quality of the traffic. Proxies could be retention of 3 days, engagement or vitality, say Facebook shares. Post-install user engagement is emphasized.

    The future of mobile advertising is its focus on real time. Apps are seen on the basis of the location, action and search. It is the use of algorithm that makes this possible.

    Advertising on mobile is considered intrusive, but if you want free media, there is going to monetization through advertising. In China, a consumer can exercise choice by clicking on a banner/sticker that he wants to opt out of this type of advertising. Media owners too would learn what the likes and dislikes of the traffic are . It can be applied to videos too.

    Marketing and advertising strategy on mobiles is planned on the basis of consumer behavior. We rather consider mobile as an additional screen, and neglect consumer behavior. Soon the mobile screen may dictate the TV screen, e.g. Chromecast and other such devices.