In a recent show, aired on CNBC-TV 18, it was reiterated that digital media is still largely underleveraged in India. Speaking on the show, Mumbai-based Ajay Kakar, chief marketing officer, Aditya Birla Financial Services, explained, “As an advertiser, I would like to follow my audiences. And television today gives me the flexibility – be it for the numbers I want to reach out to or the markets we plan to target. I can focus on mass India or I can focus wherever I want to.” For flexibility, in some cases, advertisers are reducing their basket of TV stations in order to go the efficiency route by restricting the number of ‘reach’ TV stations in their channel planning strategy and mixing it up with one or two frequency channels. But some advertisers still question this flexibility when it comes to emerging media. Kakar added, “When it comes to the Internet, why do we yet call it new media? And if we call it in this manner, then some of the reasons would be – I will it evaluate by it by the percentage of my target audience that I can reach out to. And in financial services while they believe the percentage is high remember the propensity to spend is with a relatively 30+ audience. What is therefore the percentage of spend that I will put on this medium – the answer to both of them is regrettably low. One of the reasons could be that could be that some of the head of marketing are in their 40’s!” As per the data provided by ComScore State of the Internet in the Asia Pacific, November 2009, the Internet population age distribution in India, indicates that 41 percent of the users belong to 15-24 years, 36 percent are between 25-34 years and 15 percent are from the 35-44 age-group. “Some of the reasons could be attributed to (advertisers’) lack of awareness and some to lack of conviction. It is for the industry to convince…there is where your audience is and this is how you can reach them better than how are you doing today. And I think that concept selling hasn’t happened as yet,” Kakar said. Penetration A recent study released by the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB shared that there are only about two million users accessing Internet through their mobile phones and other mobile devices on an active basis, which means they use Internet on their mobile at least once a month. The study further states that there are close to 127 million mobile subscribers, effectively 27 percent of the total subscriber base of 471 million, whose mobile devices are Internet ready. Of these 127 million subscribers, only 9.4 percent (12 million users) have used Internet over their mobile phones ever (at least once in last one year). This number further reduces to two million or 17 percent when it comes to active users. The report further highlights that nearly 70 percent of these users are students (college-going) and young men which fall into the 18-35 age-group, which incidentally constitutes the major chunk of active Internet user base in India. The combined advertising spends for the Internet and mobile was around US$155 million in 2009, registering a growth of 56 percent over the last year, according to Lintas Media Group. “The online communities of most TV shows is in the region of 100,000-150,000. The number of people following Amitabh Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra etc. on Twitter has increased manifold over the last year. People have begun living alternate lives on the net in the form of Farmville and Sorority Life. People are also spending more time on their mobiles. The ‘connect’ and ‘time-spent’ on these media is not in question at all. Relevant measurement metrics pertaining to the nature of a campaign is a concern, for example the metrics to measure a banner campaign and a community building initiative are not too different from a point of metrics provided by technology. WAP, SMS 2.0 etc are technologies which are far ahead of their time as close to 80 percent of the mobile base of 450 million does not have GPRS enabled phones,” says Sudha Natrajan, president and chief operating officer, Lintas Media Group. According to IAMAI and IMRB’s report, online communication happens to be the major application in the vogue (this entails chatting, accessing the social networking sites and M-blogging), 60 percent users who are accessing Internet through mobile will account for this. This is closely followed by Information search which stand at 23 percent of the total active users. Broadcasters’ approach Monica Tata, vice president and deputy general manager – Entertainment Networks, South Asia, Turner International India Private Limited (TIIPL), says, digital media will play a key role and fast become a key growth avenue for broadcasters. “The real and virtual world divides are getting blurred as is evident from Cartoon Network’s patented research study on kids’ lifestyle, New Generations 2009, 49 percent of the kids aged 7-14 years have used a computer in the past one month, and 15 percent of all kids 7-14 who surfed the internet in the past one month, two-thirds are at least weekly users, while in 2008 it was 10 percent,” shared Tata Monica. According to Turner, its kids’ sites consistently attract huge traffic: Cartoonnetworkindia.com: Average Unique Visitors per month – 600,000; Average time spent per unique user – 30 minutes. POGO .tv: Average Unique Visitors per month – 80,000; Average time spent per unique user – 21 minutes. On mobile, Turner in India offers games and video clips. Cartoon Network recently launched Cartoon Network comics on mobile handsets through India’s leading telecom operators that include Airtel, Idea, Reliance Mobile amongst others. In the general entertainment genre, Viacom 18’s Colors is using the Internet and mobile phones to build viewer interactivity, spreading word of mouth and reminding and reinforcing call to action.