Bogdan Gavrila – Core Target

A new figure released by trafic.ro shows how many people stay on Romanian websites: 10.172.809 visitors (84.925.928 page views) – this was Monday, 28th of January 2008 (more info here).

Of course, now we can talk on this figures (Doru, Dragos).

Don’t buy advertising on foreign websites! Buy only .ro if you want Romanian audience!

ARBOmedia is very active this week with all the trainings/trips and hi5 promotion. Călin RotăruÅŸ: General manager ARBOinteractive gave an interview for HotNews/Iulian Comanescu but I was stunned to find out how they censored the word “Boule” from a poster behind the gm:
Continue reading ‘ARBOmedia censorship on HotNews Blogs’

Money:
- the Romanian currency (RON) was seriously affected this month;
- the rate-cards are still in RON and there are no plans to return to EUR again;
- only Boom has a sales plan to cover the loses;
- some publishers are loosing money due to currency variations;

Reach – IWS Update:
- 7,000,000 Internet users as of Sept/07, 31.4% penetration, per ITU.
- 1,769,300 Internet broadband connections as of Sept/07, per ITU, 7.9% p.r.
Continue reading ‘Romanian Internet Advertising Market – January 2008 update’

Deloitte Romania released yesterday its media predictions for 2008 (50% growth for the online budgets/ rising competitiveness from traditional media/ growing antipathy to the online advertisement itself/ growing opposition to the tracking of online behaviour).

“Internet advertising market in Romania is estimated at 10 million Euro in 2007, 3% of overall advertising spendures” – Radu Herinean, Enterprise Risk Services Manager la Deloitte Romania.

This post is not only about BrightRoll (“the world’s largest and most trusted video advertising network” in case it doesn’t sound familiar) and their commercials for video online advertising (they offer smart video ad campaigns on 250 top U.S. websites).

“Dangerous content” became a clear issue in Romania last year when several top websites started to host pornographic materials and a huge collection of naked ladies… and still do: Neogen is famous for this, ROL.ro wants to compete and the list can go on. What worries me is that some Romanian planners still target advertising on websites with x-rated sections or on websites with questionable content/referrals/keywords.

Dangerous content can affect our brand!

A “major restructuring” at Publicis – Zenith Restructures Video Buying (close attention for the term “Video Buying”) and they will “oversee the integration of all video-based media buying operations, consolidating traditional broadcast and cable buying departments, with video buying duties for emerging platforms such as online video.”

Zenith’s new approach, although similar to a strategy adopted (few years ago) by sister agencies Starcom/MediaVest, points out a new direction in video buying. The things in Romania are the other way around (TV rulz) and I discussed this same matter with a foreign friend over breakfast this week. His insight was that in Romania we still “don’t get it” with the potential of Internet advertising while TV spaces are overbooked.

I don’t know a single person in his right mind that keeps the TV on the same channel during a commercial brake (the magic remote kicks in)… then again, I can be wrong

Boom:
- they have a new headquarters on the 1st floor in the NCH building;
- 14th of January – the Softure ad-server served 25,545,699 banners (a new record) to 2,435,487 unique visitors;
- Ionel Naftanaila (Softure Development Manager) said that they upgraded their software and have new hardware;
- 21:00 – is the PRIME TIME on the Romanian Internet according to Naftanaila;
- new websites in their portfolio (soon official on their website);
- they now have the biggest sales department in Romania.

Active Soft:
- now have their own floor in the NCH building (3rd floor);
- a bigger team and a bigger budget for 2008;
- they manage the biggest network in Romania (unique visitors cumulated) and now is the biggest online publisher controlled by NCH.
- although it’s a discreet publisher, they started to appear in several negative posts on different blogs;
- they don’t have a (evil twin) brother in Australia
- my guess is that we’ll see many interesting things from them in 2008.

It seems that the investments made last year (people, hardware, portfolio, websites, etc.) started to show the first results this month.

MediaCafe announced their sales strategy focused on 3 exclusive international networks (but popular in Romania) and no local websites along with some useful info:
- mobile.de (Auto) – 1.5 mil visitors from Romania
- gsmarena.com new in rate card
- yahoo messenger over 1 billion page views/freq. 142 views/ user;
- ~3000 Euro the minimum budget for a Yahoo campaign
- 46 Yahoo channels available to buy: Flickr, Mail, Homepage, Games, etc. (see below some numbers).
Continue reading ‘Mediacafe updates’

Some economists say the U.S. already undergoing recession can affect Europe and also Romania – it’s possible to see slower spendings in advertising using traditional media. Probably the US Internet will benefit from this as the advertisers will shift towards the online spaces.

The Romanian Internet is not big enough for this type of shifting but my guess is that the 2008 budgets will be very well spend. ZenithOptimedia is very optimistic for online spendings and projects that the Internet will surpass radio budgets in 2008 and the amount spent on magazines by 2010 and they presented this data at the UBS Global Media & Communications Conference:
- global online ad spending will rise 24% to $44.6 billion from $36 billion;
- online’s share of the world’s ad market will increase to 9.4% from 8.1%;
- Internet will overtake radio ad spend in 2008;
- comprise a double-digit share of global advertising in 2009;
- the online will surpass magazines in advertising budgets by 2010 with 11.5% of total ad spend;
- advertisers will spend $195 billion on ads in North America, a gain of 4.1% compared to 2007;
- ad expenditures globally will reach $486 billion in 2008, 6.7% rise.

I wonder how the Romanian online advertising market will react this year and how do people see the projections (considering the reach, the rise of online shopping, the new budgets and the upcoming 2 election campaigns ): Magda (Boom), Orlando (MPI), Val (AdEvolution), Doru (Marketeer.net), Claudiu (Underclick), Gabi (Boom) and Cristi Parvan (local ZenithOptimedia)?

I (the ngo activist) was invited yesterday to speak on the national radio in a 2 hour show about young politicians. On the phone: Manuel
Avramescu (PNL, no blog, no picture on the official website after 13 years in the party ), Nicolae Banicioiu (PSD, ex-student-union-leader, no blog, wiki page) and Aurelian Chiriac (PD, blogger). The sad thing was that only 1 out of 3 young politicians are using new media in order to send their political message but I expect many of them to start blogging in 2008 as their parties are preparing for the elections. A pleasant surprise is Kovács Péter (UDMR) with his new blog “100% Live“.

On the other hand, I’m happy to say that the radio show allowed me to invite the politicians to start a debate in 2008 regarding The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. My feeling is that a public debate on this matter will raise awareness on certain aspects regarding Romanians living in non-E.U. countries.

Me, the NGO activist:
- to promote democracy and its values;
- to promote e-democracy in Romania and Eastern Europe;
- to support more youth projects;

Me, the entrepreneur:
- to shape a new jobbing website (we had a fusion in 2007) and approach the market from a new angle;
- to invest more know-how in our online brands;
- to have a top lifestyle magazine for students by the end of 2008 (acquisition from 2007);
- to focus and invest more on research;
- to invest in a new start-up covering a very interesting niche (not saying more);
- to finance smart small start-ups initiated by students with NGO/entrepreneurial background;
- to integrate PR/HR/Internet/NGO know-how and shape up all our projects;

Me, the average joe:
- to spend more quality time with my friends/partners/associates and figure out how to rule the world ;
- to clean/set up my mail client with a furious spam filter (my 20+ accounts provide me daily tons of spam and I’m frustrated that sometimes I miss important mails);
- to focus more on personal development (NLP master/reading thoughts/etc ), deadlines, time management, invoices, payments (every cent is important and the pay-per-click system helped me to acknowledge this )
- to make it to all the weddings ;
- to taste 1.000+ wines;
- to begin writing a book.

In 2008 my blog will focus more on the Romanian Internet Advertising Market and only few “extracurricular” important issues will be pointed out at the right time.

I’ll write more about Boom (2008 will be their year), AdEvolution (and their decline), ARBOmedia (and their repositioning), Google (Radu Tudorache still not receiving my e-mails ), Neogen, MPI, Yahoo, HI5 and so on…

Extra cookie – My Top 20 Readers in 2007 (by Google Analytics):
1. Netbridge Investments SRL (they have the biggest online team in Romania);
2. MEDIAFAX (I had some friends over there);
3. SFOS – Soros Open Society Foundation (maybe someone appreciates me for my NGO campaigns);
4. Mobifon S.A. (some friends over there too);
5. Publimedia S.A. (they started to read blogs);
6. Ziua Daily Newspaper (friends);
7. Active Soft SRL (incredible reading pattern – every 2 days );
8. Raiffeisen Bank Romania S.A. (guys, maybe you plan a campaign on our network – ask boom for the rate-card);
9. Google Inc. (I guess you read blogs but you don’t answer e-mails );
10. Renault (because I’m a Ferrari fan ); Continue reading ‘New Year’s resolutions, plans and visitors’