Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions and Eyeblaster promote brand building online through Rich Media Advertising

Company Brief

Mumbai/Delhi, March 10, 2008

Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions and Eyeblaster will come together to promote brand building solutions for companies in India through rich media advertising and will organize a workshop on 11th March in Mumbai and 13th March in New Delhi on the same. Both the organizations have an existing relationship for rich media ad development and ad serving technologies in a host of International markets and will now bring the same to India.

A recent study by Eyeblaster shows that Rich Media grabs attention and also achieves outstanding ROI by raising awareness and driving conversions of viewers into buyers. By analyzing 25 major online campaigns of a well known global advertiser , comprising 340 million impressions across 17 online publishers (with a split of 74% Rich Media versus 26% standard banners), the findings indicate that Rich Media views drive purchasing behaviours.

Rich Media

A method of communication that incorporates animation, sound, video, and/or interactivity. It can be used either singularly or in combination with of streaming media, sound, flash, and programming languages.

Rich Media captures attention, leading to high interaction rates (measured as clicks plus user initiated interactions /total impressions) and in turn, a higher probability of actual purchases. As more complex interactivity is built into an advertisement, more people are interacting with different parts of the ad.

"Advertising and marketing are moving away from being a monologue of messages to a conversation with consumers. Therefore the goal for marketers is to deliver better user experiences online through engagement and interactivity. We believe more and more brands will push interactive media in India to communicate with consumers", said Raghu Seelamsetty, Managing Director, Eyeblaster India.

"Rich media tools enable companies worldwide build brands by giving online users a greater brand experience while viewing ads and deliver more for creative professionals in terms creative execution," said Rajnish - India Head, Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions.

"Advertisers are slowly beginning to incorporate Rich Media into their marketing campaigns. We are just beginning to see investment from international Rich Media vendors as well as local partners. Therefore, there is need to bridge the gap in understanding and usage of rich media advertising in India in order to really grow online advertising spends in India" added Rajnish.

"Online Creativity Unlocked"- Workshop

A workshop will also be organized on 11th March at Taj Lands End, Mumbai and 13th March at Taj Mahal, New Delhi for creative professionals, media planners, buyers, advertisers and brand managers. The different sessions at the workshop would discuss the basics of rich media, global trends in adoption of rich media advertising, how rich media ads are built and how to plan a rich media campaign an interactive session where a rich media ad would be created and local case studies.

The workshop will be led by Joe Girling - General Manager, International Operations, Eyeblaster, Anant Joshi - Director, Partnerships and Sales Engineering, Eyeblaster, Arun Poojari, Regional Sales Head, MDAS and Krishna Prasad, Executive Producer, MSN India.

According to a Zenith Optimedia report on Advertising Expenditure Forecasts 2007, the percentage of online advertising out of the total advertising spend in the Asia Pacific Region has increased from 6% in 2006 to 8% in 2007 and is expected to rise to 9% in 2008 to 10% in 2009. Globally, the percentage of online advertising out of the total advertising spends is expected to rise to 11% in 2008.

In India however, the percentage of online advertising out of the total advertising spends has increased from 1.01% in 2006 to 1.87% in 2007 and is expected to rise to 4.02% in 2008 and 6.86% in 2009.

"With the constant innovation in internet marketing, it can be easy to lose sight of the key element that makes online advertising more powerful than traditional advertising: the ability to engage users more effectively. Companies can no longer rely on eye-catching headlines to drive users to click on banner ads. Instead, rich media is needed to propel online campaigns to the next level, with attention-grabbing dramatic hooks that engage advertisers' audiences and contribute to brand building", added Rajnish.

Some of the first few companies who have been working with Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions and Eyeblaster are Amex, Sony Ericsson, Bharti Airtel, Star India, HDFC, Singapore Tourism, Idea Cellular and Deccan.

For further information, please contact:

Dhanashree Tope

Mob: +91-9833673678

e-mail: dhanashree@the-practice.net