Exclusive | Httpool's Sunny Nagpal, on an evangelizing mode

Launched about two year ago, Httpool India, the full service online and mobile advertising provider is the fastest growing out of the 19 countries that the Group is present in. In a span of two years, the Indian branch has worked with over 130 top advertisers and almost all ad agencies from India cross online, mobile, search, social offerings. In addition the company has also been developing applications (mobile and social media) for local advertisers to facilitate both development and distribution for advertisers from one single point.

Talking to Adgully about Httpool India’s success, Sunny Nagpal, Co-founder and Managing Director says, “we grew by whooping 750% last year and given our YTD growth rates, we are set to better it this year and achieving similar growth rates looks very feasible for next couple of years. Our focus and commitment is to evolve and establish as a single point for all Digital Media requirements including both media across online, mobile, social, search as well as media technology. Our global presence and reach gives us a strong foothold when it comes to offering innovation.

With digital fast becoming the way forward and an integral part of most corporate advertising strategy, brands are beginning to realize that digital media is not all about displaying banners and search ads. Says Nagpal, “digital has a potential to actually act as focal point or convergence of most media strategies. We will see digital being used more often as part of both print and outdoor media campaigns. We would hope that eventually the % of digital enjoys majority in most plans, it would be realistic to assume that the larger advertisers especially from FMCG would allocate in excess of 10% of their total budgets towards digital in next couple of years.”

As for Httpool’s long-term plans, Nagpal avers, “we have been operating as a media technology company with our focus on both creating new media advertising opportunities and the technologies to leverage them in most optimal way. We are now working on developing technologies that will allow for integrated advertising in a more focused and measurable manner, and will include introduction of most advanced technologies and across platform advertising in future from Httpool.”

On the flip side, there is a need for evangelizing. Adds Nagpal, “this is "new" media we are talking about and would always need effort to create awareness about potential possibilities and outcomes. There are definitely infrastructure issues of broadband and penetration that we face, and glad that the Government is waking up to it, but given the size and diversity of our country, it may take really long before the actual "volume" potential of this market is realized. Being more specific, there is still lot of resistance to innovation with most marketers relying more on traditional media opportunities, which they cannot be blamed for doing as it has proven successful on its own benchmarks.” But with time, there will be more cases and empirical data to prove effectiveness of digital media. Moreover, there are bad habits of long term credits prevalent in the industry with the biggest of players holding on to your money for more than 90 days. This can really hurt cash flows of a trading company or a start up and can get extremely difficult to sustain.