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Social media has become an integral part of the lives of information hungry young generation. According to a latest report by IAMAI and IMRB International, the e-commerce industry in India has reached an astounding $13.5 billion US in 2014. This rapid increase in Social media usage & applications has earned India a place among top 20 developing countries on the global forum (AT Kearney Global retail development Index GRDI 2014). While Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon have been touted as the major players in this industry, the report shows that Travel industry comprised almost 61% of the total e-commerce market. Similarly, the report indicates that e-Tailing grew by 1.4 times since 2013 taking up almost 29% of the e-commerce market share in India. (Bose, 2015).
Changing demographics, choice, convenience & control apart one of the most significant contributors for this speedy growth in the digital space in India is the increased penetration of the cell phones especially the popularity of the smart phones which has consumed the maximum share. Published reports indicate that out of the total mobile users in India a substantial 41% is extremely active on social networking sites The number of internet enabled smart phone users which had clocked 116 million in year 2014 is likely to grow to an impressive 435 million by 2019 (FICCI-KPMG Report 2015). Traditional above the line approaches including mass marketing and the typical 30-second TV SPOTS are no longer able to hold consumer attention (Clift, 2015).
While Digital marketing spend is likely to escalate to 37% largely driven by ecommerce companies. As per a Forrester Google report the number of online shoppers in the country are expected to reach 100 million by 2016 which is almost triple. (Krishnamurthy & Shrivastava 2015)
Reaching out to the right customer segment at the right time and place by engaging them through social media has become a priority for marketers.
There is a deluge of products and services available online resulting in an increased number of options for online shoppers adding to the clutter and advertising noise online. With Consumer dynamism & ever rising competitive pressures in the digital space, brands are seen desperately vying for consumer attention not just by integrating with their everyday routine but also by engaging them at all possible touch-points. Search engines like Google are already making concerted efforts in tracking the search habits of the customers including their past searches and keywords on the basis of which they can be shown brand messages in the future. Whenever a user is logged in on any site an advertisement suddenly appears with reference to the context of an earlier search made owning up key words & even conversations. Given the current context 'Contextual advertising' is one such fast emerging trend of online marketing communication applied by major players to make their brands more meaningful for optimally reaching out to consumers in the fastest possible manner. Also referred to as “In-Text” advertising or “In-Context” technology (Wikipedia) it is digital communication strategy that takes the route of focused advertising by leveraging various consumer “contexts” on the social media wherein relevant ads are displayed to customers based on their browsing history, location, profile. The aim of such ads is placing commercially relevant content on a user’s search sites to provide a better user experience thus increasing the chances of user's ad-click rate (XuWu, Li Chen, 2015). But does the user find any relevance in this strategy? The paper aims to empirically evaluate the relevance of “Hyper contextual advertising.”