Forums tap Pixel to woo premium advertisers

NETWORLD   FORUMS    PIXEL MEDIA   ONLINE ADVERTISING 

Hong Kong - Networld, which owns local community forums Discuss, Uwants and Price, has inked a deal with Pixel Media to sell banner advertising to its network of premium advertisers.

Major brand names under Pixel's network such as Dah Sing Bank, HTC, Canon and Microsoft Xbox have already shown strong interest and confirmed deals to advertise on the popular forums. 

According to comScore, Discuss and Uwants are ranked among the top five most visited websites in Hong Kong with over 1.4million and 1.3million unique users per month respectively. 

The two forums are largely dominated by male users with the bulk of those in Uwants between 18 to 29 (53%) followed by less than 18 years old at 21% while Discuss users are more matured with 46% between 18 to 29 and 20% between 30 to 39.

Users in Price.com.hk are also male dominated at close to 75% with the bulk of them between 18 to 29 years old. 

Oscar Leung (pictured), general manager for Networld, said the partnership with Pixel will allow Networld to attract a broader range of advertisers in the premium market. 

He said forums are still popular among Hong Kong people as they like to share their opinions on hot or gossip topics. 

With social networking sites such as Facebook gaining popularity in recent months, Leung admitted they were worried it would draw its members away from their sites. 

However, he said the impact of Facebook on their forums is "not that serious" as members tend to share their time across social sites and forums. 

Kevin Huang, CEO for Pixel Media, said there is a distinction between the two as social networks allow users to build relationships with their friends while discussion forums are like a community where people share and exchange information who may or may not personally know one another.

He added as advertising is also part of that information dissemination, forum users tend to be receptive to new products and services that are advertised.

Pixel's partnership with Networld will give the ad network an un-duplicated reach to more than 73% of all internet users in Hong Kong, behind its closest rival with the largest platform, Yahoo at 76%.   

_________________________________________________________________________________________

More quality Lighthouse titles

Managing people? For HR and leadership strategy, Human Resources has it covered.

Want to get on the right side of the procurement department?
Direct them to Procurement Asia.