Re: Video ads - Pre-rolls on our portal

From: Shalabh Pandey <shalabhpandey_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed 17 Jan 2007 10:01:25 -0600

Hi William,

Nice initiative. Looks like traffic from these markets on rajshri.com will
be mostly, if not only, from the Indian diaspora. There would be a sizeable
base from Pakistan/UAE etc countries where people cant get enough of Indian
cinema also.But the majoriy of your audience will still be Indian diaspora.
Not just because of interests, but because of infrastucture issues like
bandwidth/internet maturity, the cost of ownership, etc

In that case, the marketing opportunity will also be slightly limited to
Indian brands wanting to reach out to NRIs. Therefore, a benchmark of what
happens in an advanced online market like US might not be the right thing to
do. Any which ways, even US online marketers are struggling to reach a
benchmark for in-Video advertising rates.

I also believe that this TG can basically be pushed a couple of categories:
1) Financial products (NRI accounts/investment services, etc)
2) Residential offerings
3) Gifts to people back home in India

In (1) and (3) categories, there will be a strict price conciousness and
demanding RoI numbers. In 2nd option, maybe more scope for innovation.

 The cost also depends on a lot of other factors like are you using rich
media ad serving support (say Motif etc) , your competitors targeting NRIs-
what are they charging, etc

With all these facts in hindsight, you have to arrive at a number which is
consistently good for retainer brands (like say an ICICI, Citibank- who
would do consistent advertising but will be very cost consious), and some
luxury brands (Omaxe?) who might be prepared to pay more.

Though it is open to discussion, my guess is you should not charge more
than, say $8 CPM. This is what most of the adverisers will be paying for
markets that your TG is in. Maybe lesser for the static ad spot while users
wait for the video to launch.

Another, relatively out of context suggestion is- using a 300x250 video ad
across all pages- considering your portal is completely video based, this
should be well received, and a unique proposition as compared to
competitors. I'm sure you can charge $8-$10 for these spots.

Hope suggestions are useful

Regards
Shalabh Pandey
Director- Media Contacts Singapore



Received on Wed Jan 17 2007 - 10:01:25 CST