Seasonaliity in ad spends is a phenomenon that most Indian marketers are familiar with. Whether you have the rash of heat countering products which pop up on your TV screens during the summer months. Or whether it is the gaggle of brands that roll out the red carpet and bring out their tooting horns during the festive season of Diwali every year. They conserve their ad rupees for these periods when the consumer is willing to spend but wants to be guided or lured in the right direction through messaging.
As per indiantelevision.com’s analysis, this festive season (September, October, mid-November) , advertisers are expected to spend close to Rs 70 billion on television commercials alone.
“Last year, the festive quarter saw television channels garnering nearly 35 to 40 per cent of their annual total ad revenue. One would expect the same from this year, as it is as high as it can get,” says media planning and buying expert Karthik Lakshminarayan.
KPMG’s entertainment industry report for Ficci in 2015 predicted that television would account for Rs 175 billion in ad spending. Going by that yardstick, then TV advertising during the festive season would touch Rs 7,000 crore this year.
When it comes he big spenders, FMCG seem to be stealing the show. “FMCG ad spending rules the the roost, and e commerce are the new kids on the block. FMCGs command 50 per cent of the ad spends while E-Commerce offer another 10 per cent,“ says Lakshminarayan. That would mean FMCG spending is likely to scale Rs 3500 crore on television ads.
Although market analysts admit that E-Commerce players have emerged as big advertisers this season and have raised the bar for the rest of the ad-spenders over all, their contribution to television ad revenue is lesser than last year.
Even as their total ad spend for this festive season has risen to Rs 2000 crore, only Rs 700 crore of that is going to TVCs on channels.
Last year, e Commerce players had according to estimates spent close to Rs 1300 crores on television in the festive quarter. This year only 35 per cent of their total festival spends has been allocated to television, as compared to 60 per cent last year, shares a veteran media planner with indiantelevision.com.
Having said that, the big players in E-Commerce continue to be strong on the top television properties.
“If you look at the slots, all the top properties in television are blocked with ecommerce brands. Given the festive season, the ad slots are going at a premium rates and the ecommerce brands are lapping them up at the higher rates,” says Havas Media Group-India and South Asia, CEO, Anita Nayyar, adding that thanks to these brands the ad rates continue to stay up even with the shrinking ad inventory.
“While the increase in ad spends is mainly due to E-Commerce, the contribution from the other section of the advertisers like automobiles is expected to pick up as well. The revenue from traditional spenders for this season like jewellers and retailers is almost stable,” informs media analyst and IIM Calcutta professor Chandradeep (CD) Mitra.
In terms of channel genres, Hindi GECs maintain their lead as advertiser’s favourite with an approximate share of 27.5 per cent of the total spends, with regional channels following.
An order that is directly proportional to the channels’ viewership ratings. According to the FICCI Industry report 2015, Hindi GECs command over 31 percent of the total viewership pie chart followed by regional channels at 15.9 per cent.
Amongst the regional channels, Marathi ad slots are the most expensive to buy, says Lakshminarayan. “Maharashtra rates are higher indexed than other regional markets, and their rate of increase is seemingly more than other markets.”
With the new BARC ratings inclusive of rural data, one can expect an even further increase in their ad spends, market analysts predict.
The news channels too grabbed eyeballs thanks to the Bihar elections coinciding with the festive week, and therefore have gotten due attention from advertisers as well. “News was there in the limelight due to Bihar, that worked well for the retail advertisers looking to put their name out during the festive season as well,” says Nayyar.
Divya Radhakrishnan, Managing director, Helios Media 
Karthik Lakshminarayan, COO, Madison Media 
KVL Narayan Rao, executive vice chairperson, NDTV 
Navin Khemka, managing partner, north and east region, Maxis 
Nisha Singhania, co-founder, Infectious 
Shantanu Gangane, marketing head-Movies Now, Times Television Network 
Sudhir Sharma, producer, Sunshine Productions
Yash Patnaik, producer, Beyond Dreams Entertainment 
“The Marathi space has been missing this genre and these two shows are the network’s prime properties. The whole idea behind spending so much is that the whole network gets to share it,” explains Star Pravah programming head Jayesh Patil, pointing out that the astronomical costs involved in producing such shows was the very reason they hadn’t been tapped so far by the Marathi GEC space.
