The virtual world has braved the real world downturn blows in the smartest way. While other mediums either crawled or took a step back, all through the year 2009, internet emerged as the fastest growing advertising medium for the second consecutive year with its evolving character luring more and more players and users to the domain.

Parminder Singh, Business Head, Google India, sums the mood aptly. "Creativity with efficiency kept the internet thriving in 2009," he says. That advertisers reiterated their confidence on the online medium is evident from the fact that internet advertising grew by 25 per cent. According to the Pitch-Madison Media Advertising Outlook 2010, internet clocked a total revenue of Rs 453 crore in the ad pie worth Rs 18,670 crore in 2009. That is an increase of Rs 90 crore over the previous year. The share has grown by 0.7 percentage points in the ad pie. According to Manish Vij, Co-founder, Quasar Media, the medium consolidated on its edge over other mediums in the year 2009. "Those who experimented on the medium earlier, invested consistently and with conviction," he says. As a result the major players strengthened their market position and the leaders got stronger as more money came to the medium. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, CEO, Naukri.com, says, "The slowdown separated the men from the boys. Those who created real value for the customers beat the others by a mile," he elaborates.

More engagement

With new formats evolving for internet advertising, increasing number of advertises exuded confidence in the medium. Advertisers focused more on return-on-investment (RoI) and opted for the medium because of its better measurability. That also meant that many experimental advertisers adopted the web for more continuous and consistent campaigns. "Different companies utilised the medium cautiously and judiciously, and put more money into internet as the medium gave them an opportunity to map themselves in the market as well. The advertisers are picking up quality model of internet ads rather than the quantity model," says Vij, adding, "They are differing from 'cost per impression' or 'click through rate' models. They are picking a 'cost per engagement' model which means advertising impressions are free and advertisers pay only when a user engages with their ad unit." The range of engagement varied as the user got to interact with an ad in a number of ways, including playing a game, participating in a poll, rolling over an ad unit for a specified amount of time or taking a product tour. While almost all the advertisement categories saw an increased interest online, categories like FMCG, automobiles, telecom, education and financial services significantly increased their ad spend online and led the overall growth.

Gen-X spurs V factor

The growth online was led by Gen-X, which also happens to be the target audience for most marketers. According to comScore, youth in the age group of 15-24 are the heaviest users of internet. While the increasing number of young users boosted the ad-prospect on the medium, the evolving character of online advertisement also brought a significant change in the internet ad patterns, for example, video advertisements. "Use of video on internet has picked up this year. It has also integrated the utility of the internet. People have stated using online video heavily for their comprehensive knowledge. In a similar fashion, advertisers are picking up video advertisement as an important tool. Consequently ads in the form of banners carrying video contents are becoming more popular," says Vij.

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