V Ramani is IOA chief

V Ramani, CEO, Mediaturf, has taken over as the new chairman of the Internet & Online Association (IOA).

Set up in January 2004 by leading Indian portals, Hindustantimes.com, Indiatimes.com, MSN.co.in, Rediff.com, Sify.com, Yahoo.co.in, and online media agency, Mediaturf, the IOA has been created to specifically address the issues and growth-related concerns of online media, advertising, e-commerce and wireless/mobile advertising.

IOA has also announced its first industry initiative 'The Indian Online Advertising Conclave'. Tipped to be an important gathering, the conclave will include key speakers and influencers from all sides of the decision-making table.

The conclave is scheduled for October 1, 2004 at the Hilton Towers Hotel in Mumbai.

The conclave will be an important industry event for marketing and agency professionals - directly or indirectly responsible for interactive advertising decisions.

The single-day event with six key sessions aims at creating an ideal environment for publishers to offer solutions and provides a platform for an open dialogue to focus on critical areas in the online advertising sector, which include issues and myths surrounding Internet marketing, actionable e-marketing programmes, consumer engagement time, web analytics, interactive advertising factors and success, consumer experiences beyond computing and ROIs.

The roll of eminent speakers and panelists lined up for the day reflect tremendous industry support towards IOA. They include Ajit Balakrishnan - chairman & CEO, Rediff.com; Santosh Desai - president, McCann Erickson; Ramesh Kannan - international product director, Double Click; Murly Tiwari - technology solutions director, Real Media UK; Neeraj Roy - CEO, Hungama.com; Saugata Gupta - head of marketing, Marico Industries; P Gopakumar - head of NRI business, ICICI Bank; Ravi Kiran - MD, Starcom; Shashi Sinha - executive director, Lodestar ; Raja Ray, national creative director, Mediaturf Worldwide; Jayant Murty - director-marketing, Intel India; Sriram Jagannathan - VP and head (Internet, mobile & e-commerce) - Citibank; Amitabh Pandey, Group GM - IT services , IRCTC ; Sudhir Nair - Grey Interactive; Avnish Bajaj - managing director, Baazee.com and V Ramani, chairman -IOA & CEO , Mediaturf.

Entry is by invitation and no participation fees will be levied.

Preeti Desai of IOA says, "Online Advertising is dramatically under-leveraged and marketers are missing a huge strategic opportunity. The conclave aims at convincing large traditional advertisers to spend a larger portion of their media budgets online. Current advertisers who are using Internet as a medium of communication and marketing are spending at an average only about 2 per cent of their entire media spends in online media.

The conclave has been programmed to deliver key answers to marketers, advertisers and agencies, focusing on harnessing the interactive reach represented by 22 million online users, 60 per cent of whom are in the 20-40 years age group with maximum spending power.

V Ramani, chairman, IOA, added, "This is the right time for IOA to be commencing its activities with a conclave like this. The market suffers from huge amounts of ignorance of how best to use this medium for advertising and marketing products and services. The eyeballs on the medium are catching large momentum. Suddenly, this combination of not knowing what to do in a suddenly ‘must have' medium, gives rise to panic. The conclave is there just to address this gnawing concern."

IOA's activities include evaluating and recommending standards and practices, fielding research to document the effectiveness of the Internet & wireless as interactive media, and also educating the marketing and advertising industry about the use of interactive advertising and e-commerce. IOA's membership includes companies that are actively engaged in publishing, marketing, advertising using Internet and wireless as interactive mediums.

© 2004 agencyfaqs!