Two of the mega events this summer, general election and <a href="http://www.iplt20.com/">IPL</a>, have come as rescuer to the ailing online advertising industry. Vying for the attention of 50 million internet users, both political parties and IPL team owners have invested crores of rupees into online advertising either to seek votes or the support of youth for their respective groups. "I would estimate that more than 100 crores have been spent online by IPL and the political parties. Online advertising was down few months back but both the events have definitely helped," says Vivek Pahwa, CEO, Accentium Web Pvt Ltd, an online group running portals like gaadi.com, secondshaadi.com, adlift.com. Adding that BJP has got the strongest visibility online with L K Advani's picture all over, he says, "The congress has stayed away, saying the internet doesn't reach the 'Aam Aadmi' (common man). I think BJP has taken a leaf out of the US elections in which Obama used the online medium to great effect." IPL hasn't created that much buzz online, however, there have been targeted campaigns, he says. With over half of the country's five crore Internet users eligible for voting, politicians are using new age technologies like targeted advertising and marketing for "brand recall" via news and social networking sites. Bhashkar Rao, Director, Centre for Media Studies (CMS), says that this Lok Sabha election can be called a battle of e-democracy or electronic campaigning. "Of the total Rs 10,000 crore expected expenditure on this Lok Sabha poll, the spending on Internet campaigning should not be more than Rs 100 crores. But due to cheaper, quicker, easily availability and huge presence of eligible voters, parties are hogging on to Internet," he says. In a bid to reach out to a large section of voters, two of the main political parties, Congress and BJP, are using Google's technologies, AdWords and AdSense, with accessibility to more than 30,000 websites and blogs. Prodyut Bora, Head of BJP's IT cell, says, "Yes we are using Google Adsense to promote our party on the most visited websites in the country. Our ads can also be seen on some of the most famous foreign media sites like Guardian or even on some Pakistani news sites". However, he declines to discuss money involved in the promotion. Narasimha Jayakumar, Business Head, Google India, says, "National parties like BJP, Congress as well as few regional parties are using Google's advertising platform." The BJP is running an aggressive online ad campaign, primarily with Google, placement ads across 50,000 websites, and banner ads across 2,000 websites. IPLT20.com the official website of IPL, has recently launched a social network for the fans; teams like Deccan Chargers, Chennai Super King are also establishing connect with fans online.

Polls, IPL help online advertising

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