The FINANCIAL — The fast growing number of internet users has still not managed to persuade advertisers, who prefer to have their ads shown on the television instead. “There is no point in doubting the effectiveness of TV ads. This is a source of the media which is most widespread throughout the country. The fact that some websites are advertised on the TV is an example of the current situation of the media market in Georgia. It’s a fact that TV remains the most prioritized media source for leading companies advertising their products,” Nino Makhviladze, Executive Director of Geoplus, online advertising Service Company, told The FINANCIAL.
Geoplus is selling online space on the popular Russian social networking site odnoklassniki.ru in Georgia. The company started offering this service in summer 2009.
“In Georgia the online market is in the process of developing,” Makhviladze says. “But we can make some conclusions based on the international market. The main advantage of online ads is the cheaper prices compared to TV and other media resources. Reducing expenses has become more important since the onset of the economical downturn. Currently internet is placed on the same scale as TV and radio worldwide,” she notes.
Tatuli Gviniashvili, PR manager of Magticom, one of the leading mobile communication companies, told us that the company does not advertise online. “We had only the logo of Bali Boy as a means of bartering our way on to one of the educational sites. Today we have our own website and we think that this is enough in terms of communicating with internet users,” Gviniashvili says.
Dr. Ramaz Kvatadze, Executive Director of Georgian Research and Educational Networking Association (GRENA), says that launching ads online is more profitable than on TV channels.
“It is true that any person with access to the internet will be likely to visit a popular website, whereas in the case of television if a person is not watching at a specific time then he can easily miss an ad. We can say the same for the effectiveness of outdoor ads and billboards. A potential customer might never be on the street which the billboard is on,” he says.
Makhviladze mentions that there have been many Georgian websites around for a long time but launching ads on them was simply not in the interest of large scale companies in the country. “Companies were against associating their names with pirate websites. Recently websites started appearing in Georgia to satisfy the demands of a wide range of advertisers,” she notes.
“In Georgia the internet is in the process of development, but we can foresee a successful future in it. Not so long time ago you couldn’t find any large scale companies’ ads online, whereas currently the trend is growing fast,” Makhviladze says.
“I do not think that the sum received from ads can replace the earnings that TVs bring. But we should take into account that launching ads online is more effective than on the TV. I am sceptical that even fresh programmes will help Georgian TV to flourish any time soon.” Dr. Kvatadze says.
Dr. Kvatadze cannot see the necessity of launching Internet TV in Georgia. “Currently Georgian TV programmes mostly include soap operas and accordingly demand for access to them via the internet would be very slim,” he says.
The future development of the internet is connected with its service. Dr. Kvatadze says that even the most popular websites in Georgia, for example those that offer free movie downloads, will start losing customers soon, as people have already seen most of the films that they offer.
TV Company Imedi is working on launching an official website of their channel. “We want to offer additional access to our programmes. We plan to create an archive of our programmes that will be accessible for our customers worldwide. Our archive will include soap operas, shows, and concerts. If customers wish to visit the products made by our company, they will find it on our website. We won’t know in advance, but it we think it will be a popular service,” Levan Alpaidze, Deputy of Marketing Department of TV Company Imedi, says.
“Our main challenge is the popularization of our website and increasing its association with online space,” Alpaidze notes.
“During recent years the market of TV ads has been increasing by 30% annually and in 2007 reached its peak. After interruption of the broadcasting of TV Company Imedi, this sum has flown to outdoor ads. The largest sum which our company has received from ads posted on websites was USD 3,000 a month,” he says.
“If we consider the examples of developed countries we can see that the main demand for the internet is for its services. In this sense some steps have already been taken. It is already impossible to work without internet banking. You can pay taxes online, another issue is how well it actually works, but nevertheless it is a good step to have been taken. If we discuss the example of Estonia, every parent can see the attendance and attainment rates of their children at school. I consider such services the future of the internet,” Dr. Kvatadze says.
“At a conference of ICT in 2008 that was devoted to the recent development of the internet, the representative from Europe in charge of running media and IT stated that their plans included switching all customer electronics goods to the internet by 2020. That means that customers can switch on and off their electronics from a distance. It will also be useful to launch online teaching. So this is the future of the internet and not free movie downloads,” Dr. Kvatadze states.
Dr. Kvatadze does note however that free pirated movie download websites encourages the popularity of the internet. As the main segment of internet users started using online spaces because of such websites. “The launch of ADSL for Georgians provided customers with high speed internet and sharply raised the number of internet users, as users do not need to wait several days for downloads anymore,” he notes.
“Currently there is a big deficit of informational websites. People are searching for information about Georgia on foreign or Russian web pages. It is a sad truth that although over the past two years the number of Georgian websites has sharply increased, they are not certified and propose films, serials (including ones made by Imedi TV) or other produce that are not certified or licensed properly,” Alpaidze says.
Written By Madona Gasanova
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