Guest Column

Being futuristic while being nostalgic
Manish Vij, Co-Founder, Quasar Media

2008 was a year that helped us being futuristic while being nostalgic of 2001 days. The digital industry started with an all time high in Q1 of the 2008, and that led to heavy projections for the year. Q2 was stable, as per the projections, but July onwards both the quarters have been zero growth for most of the digital companies. However, on the whole, last year was full of new innovations, belief and clients...

We saw the client list increasing for the industry. There were more takers to experiment this medium, and at the same time the belief of companies that were using digital, was became much stronger.

Attending 2009 planning at most of our clients, we release that digital will get its share of pie for the coming year and continue to lead interest in marketing rooms. Following are 10 points that digital needs to deliver high growth...

1. Marketer friends to look at the medium as a medium of communication, and not a medium to deliver only performance based marketing.

2. With all due respect to marketing executives, we would urge senior marketing friends to realise the potential of this medium by giving its due attention

3. Agencies to go deep in clients and educate the overall client environment

4. Agencies to be a part of strategy meets than just execution partners on the medium ­ we should perform and deserve the seat in that meeting to get enough attention, leading to investment, to this medium.

5. Media planning will get a lot scientific and experiential by following third party resources to deliver reach and frequency.

6. Publishers to go wide as much as possible in increasing the clients for the medium.

7. We strongly believe that the usability of ad spots needs to drastically change across the web to make it more advertising friendly.

8. Recognition of digital beyond internet and give mobile its due...

9. Formats like video and rich media would grow the pie of digital in traditional advertisers...

10. High focus will come on creative thoughts and delivery by both traditional and digital agencies... media will follow