Online advertising is not a new syndrome, but has it still caught the imagination of a developing country like ours?? India is certainly growing and shining but how technical savvy has the Indian businessman become. Well, not much, I would say. A common man still prefers to go to a nearby shop to buy commodities despite that fact that there are so many malls that have come up in the recent times where you can get almost each and everything that you need all under one roof. But it seems, we still believe in hard work and not smart work.

Online advertising is one of the simplest and best ways to interact with the customer on a one to one basis and also helps the company in forming an intimate relationship with the customer by encouraging them to give feedback. This method is a win-win situation for the advertiser as the cost of this medium is pretty low in comparison to the vast coverage that it generates which is the ultimate aim of each and every organization i.e. to utilize the minimum resources available to get the maxim profits. Moreover, it is a much more cost-effective technique of knowing the position of the brand rather than spending millions of rupees on research and development activities. Advertising tends to be one of the first expenses to be cut when companies are tightening their belts. But with this approach of advertising, I don’t think that anyof the companies would compromise on advertising next time, when they are in a tight situation.

Online advertising is quite popular among the businesses in the European and other develpoped countries.According to a market research by a consulting firm Park Associates by 2010, online ad spending in the US is expected to rise to $23.5 billion and worldwide online ad spending is forecast to grow from $19.5 billion in 2005 to more than $55 billion in 2010, according to Piper Jaffray. Search is by far the most lucrative area, accounting for 40 percent of the total online ad spending in the U.S., according to Jupiter Research. Search advertising is expected to grow from $4.2 billion in 2005 to $7.5 billion in 2010, while display advertising is forecast to grow 10 percent between 2005 and 2010 to $7.5 billion, Jupiter Research has forecast.

The interactive media has its own share of strengths and weaknesses and the decision for its application on behalf of the advertiser depends heavily on the nature of the product and the culture of the organization to whose product portfolio the brand belongs. But it is high time that the Indian businessmen starts looking at this vast potential of opportunity which everybody seems to be ignoring for now in India.

Ashish Alex