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Online advertising jumps 70 per cent: Study
MUMBAI: Online advertising has surged 70 per cent in 2010, triggered by a strong recovery in the three-month period ended May.
Real estate, travel and finance saw a huge increase in consumer demand and interest, according to Ozone Media Performance Users Study (OMPUS).
Online performance advertisers received a 238 per cent surge in responses to finance ads from July 2009 to June 2010, while in real estate category online advertisers saw a seven-fold increase in response during this period.
Year on Year online travel advertisers received a substantial jump of 212 per cent increase in response.
Averred Ozone Media CEO Kiran Gopinath, “2010 was a turning point for online advertising. Digital advertising saw a sharp influx in the number of advertisers accompanied by healthy growth in digital media budgets. While Performance Advertising primarily benefited in the early part of the year; with increasing confidence in the medium, advertisers have started considering digital media more seriously for display purposes too.”
Online ads continued to receive highest interest from internet users in metros. Though non-metro locations have started making their presence felt, leads from metros were nearly four times the leads generated from non-metros.
NRIs formed just two per cent of the total leads generated.
Said Ozone Media VP- sales, marketing and alliances Yuzdi Badhniwalla, “Performance advertising sustained advertiser interest, during the slump, it also drove the growth in the last few quarters. We believe advertisers have started realizing the potential of exploiting the long tail of online Indians, which Ozone Media is best poised to deliver.”
The NRI category showed greater interest in matrimony and finance sectors. Non metro category has shown highest interest in matrimony sector. Travel category rebounded and received a huge response at the beginning of 2010 post the slump in 2009.
The education category received a 20 per cent increase in response from July 2009 to June 2010. Education leads have a five month steady period of sustained interest starting Dec 2009 and lasting to Apr 2010, peaking in February 2010.
The OPUS report is an analysis of nearly a quarter of a million leads generated from campaigns that were run on the Ozone Media network from July 2009 to June 2010. The data is further classified into five performance advertising sectors and studied for variations across audience categories.
The five performance advertising sectors studied are finance, matrimony, travel, education and real estate. The responses received were further classified into audience categories of metros, non-metros and NRIs.
The study provides trends and analysis over a 12-month period and is indicative of the trend for online performance advertising in the country.
For every vertical the total leads in July 2009 have been indexed to 100 and leads for each month thereafter have been compared to July 2009.
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With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
