Wan-Ifra conference on Cross Media Advertising

More than 50 attendees were present at the Wan-Ifra conference focussing on cross media at the Bombay Exhibition Centre, Goregaon. The conference was presented by three speakers, who shared their views on the cross-media segment.

03 Sep 2015 | By PrintWeek India

The first session was presented by Shantanu Bhanja, chief digital officer, Hindustan Times (HT) India who said, ''By 2017, the digital market will grow by 37%. Brands will continue to shift the money but brands may not shift to news publishers. In today's market, the brands are providing joy to no one.''
 
He said, ''Good brands have long been built on the back of the good stories and on the internet those stories can be laid in many ways that are far more interactive and far more immersive than earlier. Putting up banners and advertising the products is not helping the publishers. In a publishing industry, the master of story-telling is the content. It's time to reclaim our premium of doing; what we do best. That is: great content and story-telling. There are the two keys for branded content; one is where? And the next question is how?''.
 
He added, ''The native advertisers fit as a subset of branded content and native advertising is a concept of encompassing both the art aspiration and the suite of ad products. It is clear that most advertisers and publishers aspire to deliver paid ads that are cohesive with page content, which is assimilated into design.''
 
Anand Chakravarthy, managing partner of Maxus India, spoke about ad innovations in publishing. He said, ''In last eight years only about 10% of the people have read newspapers. If the sales team does not generate revenue, then there is a question asked by the management in the printing industry. Points like contextual placement, micro-targeting, merging of physical and digital do matter in current market scenario. Publishers are selling at cost per acquisition rate.''
 
The final speaker for the evening was Peter Zollman, founding principal, Advanced Interactive Media Group LLC, USA. He said, ''What are classified ads? The classified ads include automotive, real estate, recruitment and matrimonial. In India, matrimonial classified ads are more trending.''
 
He concluded, ''Newspaper classified ads are not dead as per the recent surveys and news. Classified ads are 70% matured in the advertising industry and it’s a good number. Today's, focus is more in digital and clients are investing in it.''