Expert discusses benefits of digital advertisement

The country head of YouTube in Singapore shared with the only Pakistani to have over 2.5 million subscribers on YouTube, Nadir Ali Shah, that by 2023, YouTube FanFest will take place in Pakistan. The FanFest gathers YouTube’s biggest stars from screens to live stages all over the world, and celebrates their freedom to be heard, to be in the know, to be what’s next, and to belong.

Digital advertisement was discussed in detail at a Digital Advertising Symposium arranged by the University of Karachi’s Mass Communication Department on Monday. The art director of advertising agency JWT Grey, Syed Ahsan Ali, said anything digital we see on screen, such as internet mobile phone, is digital advertisement. With the help of digital advertising the advertiser can easily calculate the Return on Investment (ROI). The ROI is a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of a number of different investments.

One can know about its profit as well as proper usage of budget. “The best thing about digital advertising is, it is very easy to measure and calculate as compared to traditional advertisement,” he said.

In digital advertisement, he explained, the advertiser gets a brief. “In the brief, client tells which digital media platform he or she wants to reach, for instance, Instagram or Facebook,” he said and added that after proper research on the topic they come up with the proper usage of the exact digital media platform. Then comes the execution point.

Earlier he said that the advertisers used to make Television Commercial (TVC), and now there’s a concept of Digital Video Commercial (DVC). “The DVCs require same efforts, but they are highly cost effective,” he shared and added that its profit could be easily determined. Once the campaign is launched through the DVC and it turns out that it is not properly targeting their targeted audience, he explained that the advertiser has to optimise that for the targeted audience. In the last, he said that the advertiser analyses and measures their campaign to come up with their ROI.

The digital media, he said, opens new opportunities for individuals, such as hashtags. “Hashtags are the new identity of digital,” he said and explained that every digital campaign starts with a hashtag, such as #MeToo. With the help of hashtags, he said that one could come up with great number of following. Explaining how the YouTubers work, he said that it’s all about clicks. “The more you click at their video, the more they earn,” he said.

Meanwhile, Shah said that the YouTube is one of the best digital media platforms from earning point of view. The cost per thousand impressions (CPM), he explained, is low as compared to other countries in Pakistan for YouTube. The CPM is one of the basic stats in the world of YouTube advertising.

Last year, he shared that he happened to see YouTube’s country head in Singapore, where he spoke to him in details about the future of YouTube in Pakistan. The country head, he shared, assured Shah that by 2023, YouTube FanFest will take place in Pakistan.