The homegrown beverage maker wants to highlight its traditional flavours in an advertisement. Its target is the young, who've heard about the drinks that dadima conjured up in the kitchen, as well as the aged, who insist that new beverages are not a patch on the old ones. So what does the company do? It puts its commercial up on the social media.

That's what Paper Boat, a relatively young company, has done. It has come out with a special advertisement which is over three minutes long and hasn't been aired on television. Instead, it catches viewers online.

The ad, "Rizwan - Keeper of the Gates of Heaven", was filmed by the Delhi-based Humour Me ad agency. It captures how the smell and taste of a drink transports a blind old man to his childhood. And, of course, it's gone viral.

It's just one of the many ads that are making their presence felt on digital platforms. Clearly, brands want to go beyond the usual television commercials (TVC). And while those with a TV remote in hand still rule the roost, efforts are on to impress those with a mouse or a mobile phone.

The soft drink company's made-for-digital-space ad garnered more than 3 million hits on YouTube and Facebook within a fortnight. "Paper Boat is all about bringing the most authentic products from our childhood to the fore. Rizwan does that," Parvesh Debuka, marketing head, Paper Boat, says.

New brands are not the only ones cashing in on the importance of the digital audience. Many well-established companies are also jumping on to the online bandwagon. When Bajaj Auto launched its bike Bajaj V, it wanted to create a buzz about the two-wheeler, which contains metal from the Indian Navy's now dismantled battleship INS Vikrant. So along with a television commercial, it sought to kick up an online stir.

The result was a short documentary Sons of Vikrant with officers who served on Vikrant discussing the battleship and Bajaj's new bike. The film, by ad agency Leo Burnett, has garnered more than a million hits on YouTube alone.

"The online audience is interested in watching good content even if it is a promotional one. Sons of Vikrant is like a documentary but it is of very high quality and people are watching it," says Raj Deepak Das, chief creative officer, Leo Burnett.

Of course, online ads are still a small part of the large advertising pie. TV continues to dominate the ad market, which is estimated to be around Rs 24,000 crore in India. The TV ad market is growing at 15 per cent each year.

But spending on digital ads is growing, too - 45-50 per cent annually, says Unny Radhakrishnan, chief digital officer - South Asia, Group M, a media buying company. "Many brands are creating advertising or content exclusively for the digital media," he says.

Among them is Creo, the new kid in the crowded mobile phone market in India. It ran a made-for-web commercial to push its product last month. A few months ago, German automaker Volkswagen AG launched a digital-only ad campaign for its new Beetle launch in India.

Not surprisingly, brands and ad agencies alike have started looking at the digital audience with all the seriousness it deserves.

"No one wants to be left behind," Das says. "People now have smartphones and with increased Internet speeds, a whole new medium has opened up for brand promotion."

It makes financial sense, too. A video ad lasting 30 seconds on YouTube would cost Rs 2-7 per view depending on the number of people subscribed to a channel. On the other hand, a 10-second ad on a television channel would cost anywhere between Rs 8,000 and Rs 1.8 lakh, depending on the channel, time and show.

Some brands are scoring big. For instance, Cello, known for its thermoware for more than 40 years, has been grabbing attention online with a seven-minute video Main Aur Maa (Mother and I), keeping its tagline "Companion For Life" in mind. The ad captures the journey of a woman from giving birth to a child to becoming a grandmother, while skillfully placing the brand at different places.

"The campaign went viral and touched over 5 million hearts all over the country in 26 days. Current views are more than 25 million," says Ravikant Banka, CMD, Eggfirst, the agency that conceptualised the ad.

Online ad content works in two different ways. The ones which are short - say 1-2 minutes long - appear as ads on YouTube, Facebook and other sites. If you show an interest in a short ad and click on a link, you are directed to a longer advertisement of the same product on the company's channels or Facebook pages.

"That's how keen some brands are to sell their longform ad content," says Harshad Hardikar, COO, Indigo Consultancy, the digital advertising arm of Leo Burnett. Indigo launches 25-30 online campaigns every year.

Enticing online audience to any ad is easier said than done since it is believed that Internet browsers have a shorter attention span than television watchers. Internet users tend to see an ad as intrusive and simply click on the close button. So the ad-makers stress they have to quickly grab attention.

"You only have 5-6 seconds to achieve that. Unless you hold a person's attention, he will just move on," Hardikar says.

For companies, what makes online ads more attractive is the fact that they can gauge how an ad is doing on a digital platform. Hardikar recalls how a senior Axis Bank executive, impressed by the audience response to its online ad, told an official of Indigo Consultancy that it cost the bank less money per view than a normal television ad. "That's an indication that digital is the future" he says.

Banka adds that digital is real time and a two-way road to communication, unlike traditional media. "There are tools to measure and analyse results and act upon them," he says.

It's a whole new science, agrees Das of Leo Burnett. "Based on the data they have, clients now tell me as to when and how many people stopped watching an ad, how many people shared the ad or how many watched it again. People can now track it that minutely," he says.

But, as the saying goes, these are early days yet. Companies are not sure if higher viewership of an advertisement means higher sales.

"A digital ad gives you clear insight on whether people like or dislike the content. However, it will be difficult to gauge the response on the ground as far as the product is concerned," Debuka of Paper Boat says.

But industry watchers expect digital ads to grow - the way they have in the West.

"Internationally for brands, having a social media presence has quickly evolved from being the intern's job to becoming a high-tech arm of the marketing department. In addition to the old guard of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, platforms such as Tumblr, Instagram and Pinterest are the new channels of digital influence," Prateek N. Kumar, CEO & MD of Neo Niche, an ad agency in Delhi, says.

These days, some companies are shooting their commercials keeping television as well as digital audiences in mind. The online ad is usually longer. For instance, luggage makers VIP shot a 2.5-minute version of actor Hrithik Roshan's shorter television ad for VIP Bags for online use.

"This content is in a story format as opposed to the shorter TV ad. We have got a wonderful response to it," Sudip Ghose, vice-president, VIP Industries says.

The difference between a TV ad and a digital ad is not just the length. Ad makers say that they have greater freedom online to experiment. For instance, they can tell a story, as they did with Rizwan, or build a character, as HelpAge has done with an online ad on a grandmother who wants to eat a samosa.

Advertisers tend to keep their TVCs and online ads separate. They find that Net surfers do not always want to watch online the very ads that appear on TV. But some ads, they point out, have made as much of an impact online as on TV.

Hardikar cites the Google ad, which was about two old friends - elderly people from India and Pakistan - who were brought together by a grandchild. The World Wrestling Entertainment wrestler Khali in an Ambuja Cement ad also grabbed attention on the Internet.

"They were big hits online, but these were exceptions. Copy-pasting TVCs onto digital platforms doesn't work every time," Hardikar says.

So ad agencies are going back to the drawing boards, thinking of different templates. So far, most of the online ads have been produced by young companies such as Indigo and Eggfirst.

"Traditional ad agencies are like behemoths. They take time to move. You need to be nimble-footed while being creative to be in the digital space. That is the reason why you are seeing so many young agencies doing well in this field," ad guru Prahlad Kakkar reasons.

Companies are preparing in their own way for this relatively new medium. "We have set separate budgets for the digital medium which was not the case even a year ago. And I am sure that this will only increase with time," Ghose of VIP says.

"Digital is the future of marketing," Banka predicts. Watch this space.