Science Communication Project How effective an Internet advertisement is, as a persuasive tool in impacting the mind of internet user of Varanasi This project is to get an overall view and exposure to the industry and its working environment. It enhances and boosts the morale of the researcher. Most of the program is meant for the personality development of the researcher and basic motive is to provide accessibility to practical knowledge and exposure to practical professional life.

Therefore to make aware of real life in working situation, every Journalism and Mass communication student of BHU has to undergo research project as a class work activity under the proper guidance of professors and professional managers, which give him or her a better understanding of environment. This project is helpful in accounting for as experience, which would prove very beneficial to create a future endeavor. This is result of my hard work and deep involvement with the work allotted to me as for the academic purpose to fulfill the requirement of the Journalism and Mass communication student of BHU.

In this project, which is given by the Professor Anurag Dave, I found the information about pulses of present scenario of the how effective an Internet advertisement is, as a persuasive tool in impacting the mind of internet user of Varanasi. And finally I hope that this report meet the given expectation and requirement. I have tried to draw some conclusion from my observation and have made suggestion and recommendation, which I think shall help the online advertisement companies in solving the problem highlighted by this study and also help in accomplishment of the organizational objective.

Acknowledgement I Basant Deo Singh student of Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi would like to thank each and every person who has helped me in the completion of the project. This project has been an outcome of patient guidance of our project guide Dr. Anurag Dave, Assistant Professor and Dr Sisir Basu; Dr. Sobhna Narlekar Department of Journalism and Mass Communication who has helped me with each and every small details of the topic so that I could understand and go about compiling whatever understood. They were always there to short out complications and find easy solutions to them.

I would take this occasion to give my special thanks to them. Without whom I would not have learned the practical application of the course we are studying. This report has had cooperation of my friends, class mates and my parents who gave us the most comfortable and friendly environment, which is necessary for a person to work freely and easily Last but not the least I would like to thank faculty at BHU who have always cheered me and boosted my confidence. Table of Contents Contents | Page no. | Chapter 1| | * Introduction| 1| * Statement of problem| 3| Aim| 4| * Objective| 4| | | Chapter 2| | * Methodology| 5| * Data gathering| 5| * Data analysis| 5| | | Chapter 3 - Findings| 6| | | Chapter 4 - Summary| 13| | | Chapter 5 - Conclusion and recommendation| 14| | | Chapter 6 - Bibliography| 15| * | | Chapter 7 - Annexure| --| | | CHAPTER – 1 Introduction The internet is the most liberating of all mass media developed to date. It is participatory. It is not meant solely to push content, in one direction, to a captive audience, the way movies or traditional network television did.

It provides the greatest array of entertainment and information, on any subject, with any degree of formality, on demand. It is the best and the most trusted source of commercial product information on cost, selection, availability, and suitability, using community content, professional reviews and peer reviews. One of the best channels for promoting brands, products and businesses is Internet advertising and it has evolved into one of the most explored new mediums available today.

According to the Indian Revenue Service, the Internet has outperformed all other diverse media channels in terms of compound annual growth rate (CAGR), with figures reaching up to 37. 3 percent. This is much higher than the registered growth rate for terrestrial television, at 7. 1 percent CAGR, print media at 3. 7%, CAGR and cinema at only 3. 1% growth rate. The number of online users in the country is steadily growing. As of 2010, there are 81 million Internet users in India out of the 1. 17 billion total populations, for a 6. % penetration rate according to statistics from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). These figures will continue to grow rapidly in the coming years as more operational Internet providers will open up shop and gain more subscribers. In India, the same as everywhere else, the cost for marketing in traditional forms of mass communication like television, radio and print are very cost-prohibitive in terms of the ratio of cost against market reach. Internet marketing is much more cost-efficient as it does not cost usinesses that much to create websites, maintain opt-in lists, and other online advertising techniques. Traditional advertising media uses a shotgun hit-and-miss approach, while Internet marketing tools are aimed towards more targeted audiences. Internet marketing methods such as pay-per-click, pay-per-action and pay-per-play advertising can solicit response only from targeted audiences giving advertisers more cost effective advertising displays to market their products. Internet marketing uses more inter active tools that engage consumers in a more in-depth manner than traditional passive media.

Potential customers can readily provide their comments and feedback, giving company’s real-time analysis as to what customers need in order to better align their marketing strategies. On top of that, Internet marketing tools have better and faster ways of measuring marketing statistics, giving them insights as to what would be more appealing to their targeted customers. Internet marketing is made more effective due to word-of-mouth or viral marketing, with much Internet marketing content easily shareable through various popular social networking sites in India such as Orkut, Facebook and Bharatstudent.

Such online content can also be shared through blogs and video sharing sites, giving the potential of reaching a wider audience even more. In a report published by the Internet and Mobile Association of India, the average Indian user spends approximately 3. 5 hours a week, or 26 minutes a day, on the Internet and would spend 12% less time during the weekends. The study also reported that Indian women spend less time on the Internet than men and less so during the weekends. The report also indicates that activities on social networking sites peak by 12% on Fridays.

A recent survey conducted by research companies in the advertising industry led to estimates that will place internet advertising revenues close to $428 billion in 2011, a big jump from last year’s $220 billion revenues. 21 percent of global Internet users now consider online advertising to be more relevant than traditional media such as radio, television, newspapers and magazines. According to a report from eMarketer, spending for online advertising in the United States rose by 13. 9 percent last year.

Indian companies are now putting more confidence in internet advertising and many are ready to commit advertising dollars in this marketing channel for this year and in years to come. The rapid growth of the Internet in the nation as well as the growing popularity of social media networks are prompting commercial and business advertisers to expand their marketing initiatives to include Internet advertising – and take Indian businesses to a whole new level. According to Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

He said that the Internet shatters all forms of advertising. “The problem is not the medium, the problem is the message, and the fact that it is not trusted, not wanted, and not needed,” he writes. Pushing a message at a potential customer when it has not been requested and when the consumer is in the midst of something else on the net, will fail as a major revenue source for most internet sites. As respondent will neglect the advertisement made. Internet advertising will rapidly2 lose its value and its impact, for reasons that traditional way of advertisement cannot be used on net.

Reason behind the study was to determine how internet user is benefited by internet advertisement and what they feel about the advertisement they are exposed on internet. Statement of the Problem Internet advertisement is evolved into one of the most explored new mediums available today and cheaper mode of promoting the product, the rapid growth as well as the growing popularity of social media networks, making business houses to use internet advertisement for promoting their product. It becomes necessary to study how internet users impacted from the advertisement they are exposed to, made by these business houses. Aim

The study aims to find what features internet user look for, in the internet advertisement; how it can be more users friendly and which section of society (i. e. group of society on the basis of age, education etc. ) is interested on which type of internet advertisement. Objectives The objective of the study was to: * Determine group of society (i. e. on the basis of sex, age, education, income) interest in internet advertisement; * Trace the internet usage pattern of user; * Find how internet user respond to internet advertisement and * Find whether internet user trust on ad and feel secure to trade online.

Limitations 1. The study is heterogeneous because internet usage of different people is different. 2. It is quite possible that, respondent may not answer honestly. 3. The study conducted on small population might not represent the actual problems ingrained in the society as a whole. 4. Only consumer perspective has been taken, view of advertiser has not been considered while doing the study. 5. Time and money was also the constraint. CHAPTER – 2 Methodology Design – The research is on the survey-based design. Reporting of Data – The data is in quantitative form. * VARIABLES –

Divided into four section and each section have different sub-sections. Each section dealt with the variables of respective objectives. Section A – Deals in Demographic analysis of society Section B – Deals in internet usage pattern Section C – Deals with how users respond to internet ad Section D – Deals in trust and security on ad and online transaction pattern respectively * Sampling – The internet user is chosen by Purposive Sampling i. e. , Non-probability sampling method. 60 is the sample size; reason behind this is the shortage of time and other resources. * Instrument – Questionnaire is used as an instrument. RESPONDENTS – For this study, respondent was those who use internet. Person were taken from cyber cafe and randomly from public who use computer or laptop for surfing internet Chapter – 3 Findings and Discussion Section – A Demographic analysis of society on the basis: * Sex * Age * Education * Income The reason behind asking questions related to sex, age, education and income is to support and give meaning to answer. We can now categories’ our question according to gender – male, female; age – under 20 or 20-30, 30-40, etc; education – primary, secondary, graduate or post graduate and income level (p. . )- under 20000, 20000-30000 etc. We found the below given details:- Sex| | | | * Male | 40| * Female| 20| Age| | | | * Under 20| 12| * 20-30| 24| * 30-40| 20| * 40-50| 2| * 51-60| 2| * Over 60| 0| Income/p. m. | | | * under 20000| 30| * 20001-40000| 20| * 40001-60000| 6| * 60001-80000| 4| | | Education| | | * >8| 2| * 8 >_10| 4| * 11 & 12| 6| * Graduate| 30| * P. G. | 18| Evaluations of Section A From this section we can conclude, male are more internet friendly than female, mostly the person who fall under the age group of 20-30 followed by 31-40 age group use internet.

I also observed that those who either pursuing or completed higher education find it easy to use internet. I have analyzed that graduate and post graduate person used to transact online. ******************************************************* Section – B This section tells about Internet using pattern of individual Online surfing| | | * everyday| 32| * once a week| 24| * once a month| 4| From 32 respondents who use to surf internet daily, among them 25 was male and rest 7 was female. So we can generalize that male are more habitual of et and so more exposed to online ad, Female was more in other two cases 10 and 3 respectively. Per session | | | * >1hr| 40| * 1-2 hr| 16| * 2<| 4| People were asked about per sitting usage pattern of internet. Interesting fact was that most people who use to surf internet only do that for less than 2 hour on each turn. That means people of Varanasi only surf net for necessary or routine work and it is still not good medium for entertainment. ********************************************************* Section C This section will explore user’s response to internet ad.

This section will give answer to our third objective. The basis of analyzing was made on: * Do you clicked online ad * Do you get information about the product through the ad * You clicked ad because of what reason * Seen ad and close the window * Online ad is most appropriate for which sector Have you ever Clicked online ad| | | | * Yes| 50| | * No| 10| | Used to get information about the product| | | * Rarely| 8| * Occasionally | 4| * Frequently| 0| * Often| 44| * Always| 4| You click ad because| | | * Entertaining| 10| * Educative| 30| * Attractive| 10| Informative| 40| * Never see an ad| 10| | | See ad & close ad window| | | | * Rarely| | | * Occasionally | * | * Frequently 10| | | * Often 44 * Always 6 Online ad is most appropriate| | | | | Banking sector| | 16| Automobile| | 12| FMCG| | | 5| Education| | 25| Matrimonial| | 10| Non-banking financial sector| 10| Travel Related product| 8| Dinning| | | 4| News / Entertainment channel| 11| Telecommunication| | 4| | | | | | | | Evaluation of Section C Mostly people surf internet for informative and educative purpose and that to on regular basis. (as 32 people from 60 use internet daily but less than hour) * Due to curiosity or for information people used to click ad as 44 out of 60 respondents said that they get useful information by clicking ad. * People use to close unwanted ad as soon as they see that ( as 44 respondent use to close the ad window as see pop up). * 24% educational ad was liked by people as from this we can also say people of Varanasi use to surf internet for some information and education and so young people are mostly the visitor of these sites. ******************************************************** Section – D This section will find whether internet users trust on online ad and feel secure to trade online. This section will give answer to our fourth and last objective. The basis for analysing was made on: * Purchased online * Which product you prefer to buy online * Ever got cheated * Internet ad disturbs you while you are in middle of thing Have you ever Purchased or transacted online| | | * Yes| 16| * No| 44| Which product you prefer to transact online| | | * Banking| 16| Electroic items| 10| * Travel (railway Reservation)| 14| Ever got cheated| | | * Yes| 6| * No| 54| Internet ad disturb you| | | * Yes| 42| * No| 18| Evaluation of D Most of the respondent has never transacted online but 10% people transacted online and they used banking site to transact either for making payment, purchased railway ticket and also purchased items. 6 respondents said that their user id was hacked or used illegally by other. When asked that do the ad disturb them, they said ‘yes often’ when they are in the middle of work.

Hence statement used and said by Prof. Eric Clemons, ‘“The problem is not the medium, the problem is the message, and the fact that it is not trusted, not wanted, and not needed”. Is true. CHAPTER 4 SUMMARY * This study was made on internet user who were enquired about their internet use and how they utilize internet ad. * From the study it is also clear that mostly young people are utilizing internet for longer period of time and for search of educative and informative purpose. * People like ad of banking, education, automobile. Online advertisement also disturbs people as they come in the middle of work and hence break concentration. CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION Pushing a message at a potential customer when it has not been requested and when the consumer is in the midst of something else on the net, will fail the purpose of ad. As respondent will neglect the advertisement made. So proper research should be done before advertising the product on net, otherwise it will only work as disturbing ad to internet user. Bibliography In completion of this project I have taken the help of various texts being rovided by various books, magazine, journal and websites which I have listed below: * http://www. aef. com/on_campus/classroom/book_excerpts/data/154, * http://www. biztechreport. com/story/1173-internet-advertising-india * http://techcrunch. com/2009/03/22/why-advertising-is-failing-on-the-internet/ * http://econsultancy. com/us/blog/8693-five-online-advertising-trends-to-expect-in-2012 * http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Online_advertising * Magazine - Style machine editor Mr. Siddhart Pandey * Book - Salesmanship by Dr. C. N. Sontakki from Kalyani Publishers