Television advertising is driving Pepsi and Reebok-Adidas sales growth in double digits. However, Scott Goodson, founder of New York-based advertising agency Strawberry Frog, was approached by Microsoft to create a marketing campaign for traditionally perceived un-cool software on accountancy.
Instead of using TV and print media for airing advertisements, he made a campaign titled 'Ideawins' that spoke about new business developed by local people and branded it with Microsoft's product. The Ideawins website led to 1.5 million downloads of the software in one year, which was three times their original sales target.
In India, traditional media, such as television and print, account for over 80 per cent of the total advertising industry. However, advertisers in India are slowly realising the potential of digital advertising media led by internet and mobile.
Hemant Malik, Marketing Executive from ITC, said, "ITC has committed just 1 per cent of its advertising budget to Internet. With the changing relevance of new media in consumer's life, I am sure this percentage would go up."
Pearl Uppal, Director, advertising and sales Yahoo India, said, "The Yahoo India front page reaches more people than many of the top daily newspapers in India. Yet Yahoo ads cost much less than what the space in print media costs. However, Indian advertisers haven't woken up to this phenomenon yet."
Some of the global advertisers such as GM have committed 50 per cent of their budget to online media.
Goodson said, "The big change that has happened lately is that a lot of marketing outlay for the new media in the US has shifted from being part of technology budget or corporate communication budget to being a part of the marketing budget. New media has grown and is now being seen by clients as not just a technology but a strategy tool."
The billing expected by Strawberry Frog, an expert in delivering new media marketing campaigns, for 2008 is $15 million, a figure it has reached in just three years of starting operations.
The digital advertising industry in the US is growing at a faster rate every year. Its growth this year is 34 per cent as compared to 27 per cent last year.
