beyondCTR

India Election 2009 on the www

Inspired probably ,by the Obama’s presidential campaign on the net most of of the political parties have launched/relaunched their websites .

BJP with bjp.org and lkadvani.in ,both sites are based on open source Joomla and have the content reasonably well organised .L.K. Advani ,I belive is the new poster boy for Google as his campaign for PM ,are putting crores in  the Google Adwords program and is hard miss on both Google SERPs and specially on the Google content network.

Congress with congress.org.in ,has its top three leaders on the home page ,the information is cluttered but still the navigation links guide to what one is looking for.

CPIM with cpim.org is probably the reflection of the times the party is in ,I could see Front Page tags on the page source ! ,there is lot of text and site is difficult to navigate.

Loksatta part has gone one step ahead and launched an Orku app . They have discussion board and gallery but curiously is filled with advertisement ,which makes you wonder on the objective of the app.

Its hard to tell wether the above would help the parties to to garner the votes but BJP ,I think has got it right as far the online campaign is concerned with their IT vision on the home page , Advani’s blog  and as far as the media planning is concerned.

The Tata Nano Launch Online Campaign

It was very heartening to see online as an integral part of the the Tata Nano launch ,with their count to the launch ads running almost on all the major horizontals in India .Like this rollover on Yahoo :

Though I, thought the internet audience was not the right TA for the worlds lowest price car ,but got a interesting different view point from a planning guy on the Hyundai account ,that net as a medium was used to position it as a technically advance and a modern car .What say you ?

Their site ,follows the same approach that Nano does to keep it low cost as it is based on open source Joomla ,has link to the Tata Nano community on facebook ,orkut and just to round it up a Nano game on Zapak.

Airtel Gana Bolo Saif-Karina Synchronised Banners on MSN

Apple was probably the first to use the synchronised banners ,meaning interacting with banner causes a change in the other .Probably part of their sustenance campaign after the TV burst ,at fraction of the cost(of ATL) and I would argue does a better job of getting the user involved and communicating the message.

Some screen grabs (quality is not great ,but you’ll get the drift….).

Google taking advertisers for a ride with Search Partners in India

Advertising on Google search through the AdWords ,you can opt to be present on Google Search partners ,which till recently ,one did not know what was the distinct share of Google and their search partners .Now the summary report is available ,but not a detailed report through the report centre.

Even looking at these summary reports ,was a revelation  as most of the of the traffic for some campaigns was from these search partners with the conversion rate being very low .The predicament is that there is no detailing of these search partners and a campaign with only search partners is not allowed ,to optimise it separately.

Hope Google is out with a solution for this soon as I recall they indent not to do any evil

Axe Chocolate Effect on India Online

The awesome Axe Chocolate TVC ,which was banned by the IB ministry due to sexual innuendos ,then later restarted with some changes ,was on major horizontal sites today .

The rendition on MSN home page has synchronised banner on the OTP property ,where the Axe chocolate man ,walks from one banner to the other ,in the process making the entire page chocolaty.

The one on Yahoo home page is even better ,where even the logo and headlines change.

Zara Hatke Online Campaigns in India

Measurability is the greatest strength of online marketing but measurability is also the biggest obstacle ,why marketers are averse of using online in place TV and print , as traditional online measures like CTR , do not do justice to the kind of interaction,involvement and thus impact on the user.

Following campaigns are case in point :

“Miley Jab Hum Tum” : For launch of this new show on star ,Rediff logout had 640X480 banners ,the first frame with one of the protagonist from the show with his character described and on clicking ,one could play a game in line of his character.

Virgin Mobile :For their popular TVC ,involving a nurse had this Over the page (OTP) position on MSN home page.

Another OTP ,this time for Tata-Sky.

Nike India’s Online Initiatives

TribalDDB has been given the mandate to create local content for NikeFootball.inthe Indian version of NikeFootball.com at the moment the site has some global content as well a link to Nike sponsored football show on ESPN.
Also NikePlus.inthe Indian version of the R/GA created Cyber lion gold winner NikePlus.com

Nokia launches SoulOfTheNight for N82

Nokia has come up with SoulOfTheNight site ,to support its ATL campaign on the discovery/rediscovery route for N82 ,which has the assisted GPS feature.

The idea behind the site is UGC on night spots in your city .The site has been designed by I&S communique

Yellojobs “Sell your Boss” viral

Yellojobs and employee referral recruitment site ,which had initially powered NDTV Job site ,till that relationship soured is running this “Sell your boss” viral at various video sharing sites.The viral is created by Regalix ,tries but fails to match the “Hari Sadu” Naukri.com TVC.

Women’s Horlicks launches health site

Glaxo(GSKCH) recently launched IndianWomenHealth.com a website on women’s health issue.

The website is created by ISHIR Infotech (JWT is the creative agency) is low on interactivity ,has some uninspiring design (why every thing associated with women has to be in pink) and looks like a work in progress. So i really doubt their claim of 3500 registrations out of 8500 unique visitors.