It seems companies have come of age and have taken cue from a recent estimate that says that women account for over a fourth of the overall internet users in India. A case in point is of ad network Ozone Media Solutions which is vying to promote women-centric brands with potential users online.
Though, in other cases, the target audience is not restricted to the fairer sex alone. The catch is to tap the potential niche customers on the Net by getting out there and using a range of of specialised tools such as dedicated advertising channels.
These fast-moving consumer brands have learnt that turning to the Internet would be of immense help keeping in mind the popular usage. The list includes big names like Himalaya Drug and Hamdard Laboratories, jewellery maker Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri (TBZ) and global consumer products major 3M Corp which use dedicated channels advertising networks like women’s advertisement channel to bring in the added traffic.
For instance, jewellery retail giant, Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri puts aside more than a tenth of the total advertising budget for promotion through the internet and is expecting it to inflate by 20% by the next year. Kiran Dixit, Head-Advertising & Marketing at Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri (TBZ) further explains the importance of this new trend on the block. As put by him, “The rupee investment gets stretched to the maximum with a women-centric channel.”
The task of ad networks like Ozone Media Solutions is to provide service to advertisers by putting together a bunch of focused and niche sites that revolve around subjects such as health, fashion and home products. For an example, Ozone places ads for women-centric consumer brands on sites such as Indus-Ladies, IndiaParenting, SanjeevKapoor.com, Evesindia.com and About.com. The company’s devoted women’s ad channel, Eva, has a following of 25 lakh women per month. Himalaya, on the other hand, advertises its e-commerce site and personal care products.
It generally works with ad networks playing the mediator between the brands and the publisher sites. But, brands do negotiate terms with the sites with a better viewership record on their own, whereas, they find it reasonable to contact ad networks to meet the remaining demands of the advertising strategy.
Sites operating on a small scale play an equally important role in influencing women’s views. It may not be possible for them to have sales representatives to reach agencies which makes it rather sensible to opt for ad networks which are associated with specialised channels which consolidate unsold ad space even across the long tail.
