NEW DELHI: While the local language market has always been a force to contend with in the Indian publishing industry – be it radio, print, TV, or digital – agency partners are not being active enough in providing the deserved monetisation support to them, said a panel discussing the state of local language market on day one of PubNation (print & digital), organised by Indiantelevision.com in partnership with Quintype and Gamezop, opined.
Moderated by Wavemaker India chief growth officer & south head Kishankumar Shyamalan, the session was attended by Punjab Kesari Group of Newspapers director Abhijay Chopra, Vikatan group MD B Srinivasan (Srini), Lokmat Media Ltd editorial director Rishi Darda, Mathrubhumi director – digital business Mayura Shreyams Kumar, and Eenadu general manager – marketing Sushil Kumar Tyagi.
The panel unanimously agreed that local content and publications have always been strong players in India, and this conversation about their relevance and sudden emergence comes up every time a new medium comes into the spotlight.
Chopra, who is a fourth-generation leader from Punjab Kesari Group, highlighted that they have existed in the market since 1948 and the audience was always there for the papers.
He said, “This point of local languages emerging comes from an advertising standpoint. What happened in the initial days was that we mostly had foreign advertisers and they advertised what they understood. So, English became their preferred language.”
Srini, in the same vein, noted that India has always been a land of multitude of diversity and it is reflected in the comparative ad spends on television channels – but the same cannot be said for print. “Regional channels are far more successful than the English ones on TV. Sadly, that never reflected on to print publications,” he said.
Kumar stated, “We have been active in the regional market since forever. And there is a sense of trust within the readers as well as the advertisers when it comes to our content. So, I won’t say we are an emerging force. Yes, for digital, I can say that our presence is now being amplified but it is certainly not ‘emerging’, so to say.”
However, they are still not getting the commercial traction they deserve because the agency and client partners are not making enough efforts to reach out or discover their content capabilities.
To drive this point home, Chopra shared a personal experience: “I started this digital property called Yum; it’s all about food, recipes and other related stuff. So when it started gaining good traction, with the intent of monetising it, I mailed a presentation to an agency representative, who never got back to me. In fact, a few weeks down the line, the same advertiser that I was trying to get onboard got in touch with me via our Facebook channel.”
He added that the clients (advertisers) do not have enough teams. And for most agency managers, the sole focus remains on completing the work and not actually doing research for good content.
Srini, supporting this thought, added, “I often wonder if there is any other metric beyond the numbers or ComScore that makes any impact on the planners. The discussion always starts with CTRs, CPLs, CPMs etc. Is there any willingness to look at our storytelling capabilities and the ability to provide the brands with a platform to engage better with their consumers?”
However, he also agreed that the publishers themselves will have to take the responsibility to promote their content and increase visibility.
Tyagi highlighted that consumers are going to get back to credible sources to get their news and advertisers are also willing to associate themselves with credible publications. “The agencies should be coming to us asking what are your editorial policies, how are you dealing with the news, what are the cultural aspects, etc.”
Darda and Kumar also noted that advertisers and agencies should look beyond just numbers and take into consideration the impact and the trust metrics for any digital channel.
