Festive ad spends: Broadcast seeks 18% growth; 12-15% growth for print

Brands and advertisers are in a buoyant mood post the positive market sentiments during Onam and Ganesh Mahotsav. For the broadcast industry, advertising sentiments this festive season are back on track with around 17-20 per cent increase in ad revenue post some reform measures that were taken by the Government, including introduction of GST and demonetisation. A good monsoon and quick market recovery from GST has kept the market sentiments on a high. Meanwhile, the print industry has witnessed a modest yet stable growth of 4.5 per cent with the increase in ad spends expected from print-heavy sectors like auto, banking and financial services and insurance (BFSI) and e-wallets, states a GroupM report. 

For Ashish Sehgal, COO, Zee Unimedia Ltd, the festive season this year looks very positive. According to Rohit Gupta, President, Sony Entertainment Television, although this festive season is quiet delayed due to GST, now that the impact is over, think this season will be as good as last year. 

 

 

Broadcast media in buoyant mood 

Ashish Sehgal affirmed, “During the festive period, TV will continue to garner 40 per cent share with 18 per cent growth rate. On the other hand, Print is expected to grow at 12-15 per cent, Radio – 20 per cent, Cinema – 25 per cent, while Digital would see an exponential growth.” 

However, Baskar Subramanian, Co-founder & CEO, Amagi Media Labs, as not so positive, stating, “This year, we suspect, will be lower than last year due to GST and demonetisation, which had an impact on the media industry in the short term.” At the same time, he added, “In the longer term, as GDP growth comes back on track, we expect full recovery to happen by mid to late 2018.”  

 

Active Brands 

Sehgal from Zee pointed out that national channels will grow at a faster pace as compared to regional channels. FMCG, Auto, Consumer durables, Retail, E-commerce and mobile handset manufacturers are some categories that are more active during Festive seasons. 

He further added, “During festive period, shorter non-fiction properties, blockbuster movies, one-day events, innovative way of communication within the content space (be it longer duration ads, contextual placement of communication, integration within the show, creatively using other elements of the channels, etc.), connecting seamlessly across platforms (ground connect) will play a very important role.” 

Echoing similar thoughts, Gupta added that during festive season, nearly all brands and categories are active to do something massive. 

Bhaskar added here, “At Amagi, our cloud broadcast solution is growing 100 per cent year on year, as more and more customers are seeing immense value in saving capex cost and converting that to OPEX by adopting cloud as an alternative to launch, operate and manage their existing and new feeds.”  

Programming Lineup 

Danish Khan EVP and Business Head Sony Entertainment Television said, “You will be seeing several new programmes. ‘Porus’ is a very big project for us. There is another show which we are doing with Siddharth Malhotra, called ‘Haasil’. We are doing show with producer Prateek Sharma, titled ‘Ek Deewana Tha’. We are also doing show with Shashi Sumeet, called ‘Yeh Un Dino Ki Baat Hai’. We also have ‘KBC’ and next edition of ‘Super Dancer’ coming very soon on Sony Television. Thus, the next two months are fully packed with some new launches on Sony Television.” 

According to Sehgal, “‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Lil Champs’ on Zee TV, which till recently was the highest rated show on Hindi GEC, will be in its last leg. The finale is slated for October 29, which will be followed by ‘Dance India Dance’, which launches on November 4. We have the Zee Rishtey Awards on Zee TV on October 1. Apart from this, we also have a slew of premieres and movie festivals lined up for Zee TV.” 

“For &TV, the Indian version of the International singing reality format, The Voice is back. The Marathi, Kannada & Telugu version of the awards will also be lined up during festive. This year Zee Telugu Kutumb awards goes international, as we host the event in Dubai,” he further said. 

Adding to this, he said, “We will also premiere ‘Half Girlfriend’ on &Pictures in September and ‘Harry Met Sejal’ on Zee TV in October. We are also excited about the launch of our premium English Movie channel &Prive HD on September 24. Living Foodz HD also makes its debut in mid-September.” 

Also read: 

As festive season rolls in, brands amp up their radio plans; spends pick up
Brands bullish this festive season; ad spends up 15-20%

Print industry remains positive 

Malayala Manorama has seen some growth in revenues during the period leading up to the festive season, though July was pretty bad due to the GST confusion. For Varghese Chandy, Vice President- Marketing, Advertising Sales at Malayala Manorama, the overall market sentiment is positive. 

According to Karun Gera, President, Advertisement, Lokmat Media, festival time is looking good and upbeat already since Q2 trends have shown an improvement in terms of spends. Festival time is looking good and upbeat already. Overall print is looking up and advertisers as FMCG and auto are showing willingness to do integrated communication using the power of print with on ground and digital.  

George Sebastian, Senior General Manager- Marketing, Matrubhumi, believes that it is important to understand that the festive calendar considered for marketers. Onam is the first one and then the rest of them follow. In a way they will be keenly observing how the market would be accepting the new offering, the scheme and the tactics they will be using in the market for their respective brands. In fact, there are marketers who make certain changes required to make their campaign or the scheme more attractive after getting a market reaction during Onam. 

For people in Kerala, great deal of purchases happen around Onam, especially high value purchase. Traditionally, Onam is a festival where clothes are bought and then it became festival where a lot of gifts were given and a lot of things associated with purchases of high value products. It is a time people look forward to making such purchases during the year. As the season starts with Onam it goes up to beginning of January and so the offer keeps on extending during this festive season and to cover the span of the spirit. But the focus would be on Onam. 

For print and all other media, 40-50 per cent of the annual advertising spend happens during August and September. This is the time when maximum sales are expected to happen. At the same time one must not wait for advertising to happen but also divide schemes other than the normal opportunities the advertisers get. We also create firm ads and innovations which is specific for this period. 

This year, the print has taken a festive look in terms of content, special packages and combinations, innovations for advertisers and also in terms of contextual stuff for the readers. A lot of this stuff happens on paper and on ground in form of activation and also we have integration that will evolve other verticals in the group. 

Share of Print 

GroupM estimates the share of print in advertising in India to be close to 30 per cent. Chandy shared that in Kerala, the reach of dailies is more than 3 times the national average. So, the share for print advertising in Kerala is close to 50 per cent. During the festive season the share of print will be a little more than usual since sectors like white goods and mobiles along with the auto sector opt for print, especially jackets in newspapers. 

Sebastian observed, “Whether it is Radio, Print or TV, a significant portion of the ad world revenue will come during these 2 months (September-October).” 

Active brands in print 

Sectors most active during the festive season are white goods, mobiles, textiles and auto. According to Chandy, the ad spends should be about 10-15 per cent higher than last year because this is the first big season after the adverse impact of demonetisation and GST. 

Echoing similar views, Sebastian stated that every year the categories that get more active are consumer durables, entertainment and electronics. Automobiles spend very heavily at this time of the year. For a small state Kerala buys a whole lot of cars and it is going to be the same this year. 

Chandy is expecting for a better festive season this year. Meanwhile, Sebastian felt that this year, there have been apprehensions by advertisers or the clients with regards to introduction of GST. He added, “End of July wasn’t really exciting in terms of conformations that were coming in because they were getting ready with GST and understanding the structure and all other things. If GST as a factor wasn’t there we would have achieved much better spends. Both in terms of advertising spend and marketing revenue or the revenue for ROI firm companies.” 

Campaign Innovations 

The number of jackets being taken on newspapers has definitely increased. Clients are using hyper local creative to promote Onam, elucidated Chandy. 

“There are quite few formats in terms of innovations; one is where client himself brings in innovations which are oriented in the form of prices. It could be new brands that derive the product. It could also be something that is offered as a package,” said Sebastian. 

Matrubhumi in particular had done special feature which celebrated spirit of something. It talked about how the product category that had the quality of likes. That provided an environment for such products to come on board and these were things that we had done in larger numbers. This year has been has been particularly important for us Matrubhumi as a group. It has consciously moved forward in terms of offering integrated solutions to branches. It’s not just having a team who sells radio, print and magazine. Anybody who is selling print sees an opportunity brought by the group or something they recognize as a problem for which a solution can be provided. 

“By solution we do not mean by offering something in one vertical but by structuring along the whole package of what we have and addressing specific problems with solution s which can be evaluated as we move forward. We have a 360 degree offering to the client and during the festive season it gets much more vibrant because it goes along with it,” concluded Sebastian.