Contextual advertising took an interesting turn with online creative agency Media2win creating a dynamic search campaign for MSN India, touted as the first of its kind in India. The campaign is currently running on Google search.

When one searches for keywords like Cricket, Cricket Score or Champions Trophy on Google, then on a match day the sponsored ad of MSN India shows the Live score of the match. When clicked, it lands on the Cricket score page of MSN India.

As against the static contextual advertisements, the ad campaign of MSN India gets dynamically created and hosted on Google the moment content on the site gets updated. This provides an instant answer to the search query of the user.

“The challenge in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is to ensure that the searched keyword delivers a compelling creative and points to the right page that provides an answer to the user’s query. We translated this requirement by developing a tool that automatically generates keywords, writes and publishes the creative the moment content on the site updates. This ensures an immediate connect to the search keyword and will drive quality audience to www.msn.co.in,” said Venkata Ramana, Search Head, Media2win.

Krishna Kumar, CEO, Media2win, said, “We have always believed in providing innovative solutions to our clients’ marketing needs. We have done that with our creative work, but this time around we have used technology. MSN India (www.msn.co.in) is a dynamic website that updates every few minutes and in certain sections like Live cricket, every few seconds. This exercise is just one step in demonstrating the power of www.msn.co.in as a destination to all user requirements.”

But isn’t the cost per user acquisition through SEM for a content driven site like MSN India high? “We are worried about the cost factor,” admitted Krishna Prasad, Head of Programming, MSN India. “We are riding at the edge of innovation. Every innovation has a cost attached to it. We want to let our users know that we have unique and exhaustive content,” he added. MSN India recently changed its look and this new campaign is part of its approach to communicate the new look and features of the website to the Indian online community.

So, will it run only during the cricket season? “No, it will run forever and we will put it on all possible platforms. We will apply some other innovation to attract users during the non-cricketing season,” Prasad said.