Ignitee Digital Solutions, earlier known as Connecturf, has emerged as one of the leading digital advertising companies in the country today. It created a buzz with its online campaigns for the Congress party during the general elections in 2009 when it used social networking sites such as Facebook and Orkut to drive traffic to the partys “Jai Ho” video on YouTube. In an interview with FEs Pritha Mitra Dasgupta, Ignitees chief executive officer Atul Hegde talks about how companies can use the social media place to build their brands.

How is digital advertising different from traditional advertising?

Well, its not different in a sense. At the end of the day, its a medium--so all brands are going to use the medium to reach the message to the audience. So, the principles are not different. So, how you would use traditional medium--be it television, outdoor, radio—to reach out to a certain audience with a certain message—the same principles apply for internet as a medium. In a sense, people have been seeing it as different because its much newer.

But yes, each medium has its own uniqueness. So, just the way TV is different from radio or print, so is internet. It allows you to have interactivity with the consumer. Which I think is the first point of differentiation. It also lets you pinpoint your target audience. For example, if you use Yahoos email service, I can actually send you an email customised according to what your surfing habits are, your likes and dislikes which you listed when you joined Yahoo. So it allows me customization, it allows me one-to-one interaction and allows far more interactivity.

How do you create a buzz on the digital medium and create your own audience set?

Even for marketers today, it is not one medium against the other. Its not that these are the advantages of the medium and these are the disadvantages of the other medium and so should I put my money here or there. If you look at any robust marketing campaign there is always a judicious mix of different mediums. And thats how it really works. So depending on the category, the campaign will always have a mix. So it might be a TV, print and internet mix. It might be internet and outdoor mix. So its not one against the other.

Lets take the example of the auto industry. You will either have the auto guy go heavy on print or television, depending on the model. The more mass targeted it is, (the more) it will go on television. There might be specific needs for that brand. For example, some brands are fighting the brand perception game, so there may be a good product and their problem is-”how do I get enough people to come and ask for my car?” Once they come and ask for the car and take the test drive, they know I have a good product. So, internet comes in over there. For example, if an auto company wants to run a specific test drive generation module, the net allows you to do that because there is far more interactivity. I cant do that with TV, print or outdoor.

Let me give you another example. We worked for the Congress party during the general election. So, one of the things that Congress wanted—is that the party manifesto remains typically remains within the party, and internet provided them a beautiful medium (to send it to voters). We did millions of mail-shots, where Jairam Ramesh, the election convenor of the party, actually sent out emails from his id with the manifesto. And today we are talking about 80 million users. Thats almost double of English readership.

How do you ensure that marketers dont lose control to consumers?

If you ask me, then I think marketers do need to let go of their brands much more. And, especially for social media, its all about letting go of your brand. We educate the client right from the beginning that dont get into this medium if you want to control everything and dont want to hear anything negative about your brand. Social media is a platform where people come and give their opinion, vent their anger or share a good experience. So you have to take the positives with the negatives. You will see that most of the brands which are on this medium reflect that they are forward thinking. But the amazing thing is that when you respond to brickbats, the affinity you build for your brand is something that cannot be measured and thats a huge benefit to the brand.

But is there a way to control negative publicity?

You can control negative publicity only till a point. For example, you can do a lot of damage control. Take Satyam, for example. A lot of damage has happened. But that doesnt mean that Satyam is a bad company. Its been around, it has given jobs to 30,000-40,000 people, they have built a brand and so there must be a lot of things which are going right. So a good reputation management programme will show that there are also a lot of good things spoken about the brand. That doesnt mean they will try and suppress all the negative things that are coming in the market about Satyam.