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Tag: Parag Masteh

  • Zee Keralam delivers content that Malayali viewers aspire for: Santosh Nair

    Zee Keralam delivers content that Malayali viewers aspire for: Santosh Nair

    MUMBAI: Neithedukkam Jeevitha Vismayangal, which means ‘Let’s weave wonders in life’ is the brand promise of Zee Keralam, one of the most recent additions to ZeeL’s stable of channels. Since its launch in November 2018, the general entertainment channel (GEC) has been swiftly growing, achieving 13 per cent market share, along with 300+ GRPs in the Kerala urban market, more than 65 per cent of the total TV population. Speaking to its success with the Malayalam audience is its second-highest TSV of 146 minutes per week.

    Zee Keralam business head Santosh Nair remarked that the biggest takeaway he’s had in these two years is that good content is always well received and accepted. Said he: “Currently, our audience is looking for relatable stories with aspirational values. We try to mirror the heart and soul of every Malayali family. We did not consider ourselves at a disadvantage just because we were a brand-new channel, we looked into filling the gaps in the market for storylines that were different from existing ones, storylines that featured the true new Malayali family.” This approach worked well for the brand and helped it gain acceptance with its audiences.

     

     

    Kerala as a market is home to legacy channels that have been around for 25+ years with a strong and consistent viewership. The market is currently dominated by Star India's Asianet followed by Flowers TV, Mazhavil Manorama, Zee Keralam is at fourth spot followed by Surya, according to the BARC data for week 47 (Saturday 21 November, Friday 27 November 2020). 

    Zee Keralam’s initial challenge was to create a shift in the viewing patterns of the Malayali audience with differentiated content, positive storylines and a mixture of original and dubbed fictions, novel non-fiction shows on weekends and a decent movie library. The channel wanted to provide the audience with extraordinary content they hadn’t seen before.

    Within the span of two years, Zee Keralam is among the top five Malayalam channels. Nair shared that the channel’s focus on creating extremely solid storylines for its fiction shows has been a main contributing factor for its growth. The channel tries to make them as realistic, fresh and relatable as possible; and this has been well received by the audience. In addition to this, its non-fiction shows have generated a lot of hype and buzz in the market. The channel also has a decent movie library that completes the entertainment package. He mentioned, “Our original content hours are at par with our competitors. That has been one of the key factors behind the growth of Zee Keralam as a brand.” 

    Another major challenge, just like any other sector, has been the Covid2019 pandemic and lockdown. Nair detailed, “Even as we resumed shoots, we placed the safety of our cast and crew first which led to slower production timelines and output. But it was worth the risk since we wanted to ensure that we provided quality entertainment as well as adhere to all the safety protocols set by the government. Now as the world is slowly recovering, it’s heartening to see how we have pulled through this difficult phase together.” As of now, the channel has managed to conduct all its shoots without much delay while adhering to all safety protocols set by the government.

     

     

    From PT 19.30 hours, the original programming line-up starts, and it goes up to 22:00 hours. The weekends feature entertaining non-fiction content in a variety of genres like comedy, reality and game show formats. Nair highlighted that the team constantly listens to feedback from its viewers and tailors the content in accordance with their tastes and preferences. Zee Keralam actively creates campaigns for all its launches and concentrates aggressively on the sustenance phase as well. The current sponsors on the channel include Cutee, BSY, myG, Swayamvara Silks, spices and condiments brand Eastern, Herbal Baby Kajal, and more.

    Mplan Media CEO Parag Masteh revealed that post Onam there has been a good momentum, market sentiment is relatively positive in Kerala, ad-rates and inventory fill-in rates are almost at 70-80 per cent. He explained that all south states are a complete independent ecosystem all together, so the GEC space in each state is pretty huge by itself and therefore advertisers pay premium prices only. Said he, “Regional channels are performing better than national channels because you reach out to a precise audience and they are aware about the consumer behaviour pattern. When you do the national campaigns there is no primary trend that arises, it is just a large sample size but when you go through regional route, you are aware of how a Keralite will buy a product and what their brand affinity is.”

    Masteh further revealed that at the entry-level there are many big brands that advertise regionally. Pharmaceutical brands are actively advertising in the south market. There are a lot of brands that have their supply chain only in a particular state. He’s of the view that while these brands have big pockets, they will not put their money on big channels because the supply chain is limited.

    Kerala is the land of spices; hence, food brands would naturally come on board. Jewellery brands are not far behind. According to Masteh, the state is a very important market for jewellery majors like Abharan, Kalyan Jewellers, and Bheema, to name a few. Retail sector businesses are also active. Apart from this a lot of standalone individual companies also advertise. Also, a lot of national brands prefer to do hyper-local marketing. However, compared to last year ad rates have declined by 20-30 percent.

    One of the highlights of Zee Keralam is that all shows in the primetime slots are equally well received and have a steady viewership, said Nair. In fact, he shared, in the last week three shows have crossed the 4+ average weekly TVR – Chembarathi at 19:00 hours, Neeyum Njanum at 19:30 hours and Karthikadeepam at 20:30 HRS. The channel’s latest non-fiction launches like Mr. & Mrs. and Let’s Rock N Roll are fast garnering a steady family audience base.

    The channel’s immediate plan of action to engage audiences doesn’t end here – two more new shows are in the pipeline. The channel’s fiction shows feature prominent faces from the Malayalam industry like Vaishnavi Saikumar featuring in her debut serial Kaiyyethum Doorath and Swasika, one of the most popular artistes in the Malayalam industry, as the lead in upcoming serial Manampole Maangalyam. It has also roped in some of its popular SaReGaMaPa finalists like Aswin Vijayan and Swetha Ashok to sing the title songs of shows which further engages the audience who are familiar with the Zee Keralam family, while also pulling in new viewership. Nair added, “When shows reach peak points in their respective storylines, we feature a maha episode for uninterrupted viewership, which helps us build a larger audience base. We are looking forward to amping up our content line up with original content in all genres.”

    Zee Keralam’s current content strategy is fiction driven, the primary objective is to concentrate on fiction shows and take them to the next level in terms of the storyline as well as production quality. The channel aims to provide “extraordinary entertainment” that is both progressive and rooted in the Malayali culture.

    According to Nair, the channel currently has a good programming strategy, but it is looking to build it even further to make it an extraordinary one.

  • Onam delivers a little below market expectations; national advertisers go big on spending

    Onam delivers a little below market expectations; national advertisers go big on spending

    NEW DELHI: The merging of age-old agrarian myths and traditions with the commercial realities of today, the festival of Onam is a happy celebration for the Malayalis and businesses encashing their festivities. Historically, the festival acts as a hotbed of ad spends, consumer-friendly deals, the launch of new products, and flared up sales. It’s close proximity to the wedding season which also makes it a big opportunity for the advertising and the marketing industry to cash on. 

    However, for the past two years, the deadly floods washing the thin strip of land in the southwestern edge of India have also been drowning the great marketing fiesta it used to be. This year, while the rains were friendly, the ongoing Covid2019 crisis acted as a dampener to the celebrations.

    Albeit, if the insiders are to be believed, the festival has led the industry to raise its head a little above the sad water. Indiantelevision.com had extensively covered in a series of stories, and also in an exclusive one-day-long virtual conclave how Kerala ad market is pinning its hope on Onam to bring some respite to its dwindling cash reserves and the latest update is that it might have managed to achieve 50-70 per cent of what was expected out of it. 

    MPlan CEO Parag Masteh shares while the national advertisers went big on spends during Onam, local advertisers were very conscious of the spending and preferred staying away from making any big investments. This is also why the local agencies couldn’t soak in the benefits of the festival. However, it surely brought some respite from the lull of the previous months. “If I compare with the last month, our cash registers witnessed a hike of 15 per cent from the previous month,” he noted. 

    Nestle Milkmaid recently launched a campaign #SpreadSweetness around Onam. The brand rolled out a 30-second ad film with the cast of one “Vanambaadi”, a popular TV series of the region. The film showcases the famous mother-daughter duo discussing the excitement during the 10 days of Onam starting from Atham to Thiruvonam.  

    Nestle India director Vineet Singh said, “As part of the initiative, Nestlé Milkmaid is sharing 10,000+ bowls of payasam with the less privileged and we encourage people to do their own act of kindness, by pledging and sharing a bowl of Payasam with someone who needs it. We hope you will visit http://createsweetstories.in/ and spread joy and sweetness and create delightful experiences for the underprivileged.”  

    Another major FMCG player Marico also launched a digital campaign #ThankYouNurses honouring the unparalleled spirit of nurses across the country. The campaign salutes the brave warriors and provides a platform for all Indians celebrating Onam to come forward and express their gratitude for the nurses through their Pookalams, a popular floor decoration with flowers which is an integral part of Onam celebrations.

    Marico chief marketing officer Koshy George said, “As India continues its fight against the pandemic, we wanted to honour the nurturing spirit and tireless efforts of the nurses who have ensured millions of COVID survivors are with their families this festive season. Parachute Advansed Gold stands for care and nurturance and has a deeper connect with the consumer larger than just hair. With this heartwarming ode, Parachute Advansed Gold aims to not only salute them, but also encourages every individual to remember them and dedicate their pookalams to the unparalleled spirit of these warriors”  

    Amplifi EVP Chandra P Dobhal adds that for national advertisers, the purpose of advertising is not just sales but for a broader perspective of brand building as well. That’s why they continued advertising. “Smaller, local brands don’t have that big budgets. I won’t say that they weren’t advertising at all but they were conscious of where they were putting their money. Also, it seems they don't want to be the reason for the spread of covid2019 and don't want their shops to be crowded.”

    He also mentions that surprisingly there was an uptick in the ad spends by local advertisers at the end of July and the first week of August. However, they started pulling back mid-August. 

    As per the TAM Adex data published in reports, the print medium witnessed 280 per cent rise in ad volumes in July 2020 as opposed to April 2020 in Kerala market. Further, more than 180 categories, over 1,400 advertisers, the region saw an upsurge of advertisements as more than 1600 brands started to advertise on the print medium. Similarly, ad volumes on television in Kerala witnessed 102 per cent rise in the same period. With more than 160 categories, over 320 advertisers, and 540 brands advertising on television platforms, the market saw an upsurge of advertisements as top 10 advertisers contributed to almost 50 per cent of the ad volume share of advertising on Kerala TV channels.

    Maitri Advertising MD Raju Menon notes that one of the reasons for local advertisers staying away from the festival was the weekend lockdown that was mandated in the state. “Local advertisers felt they will not get any benefit from advertising if the consumers can’t reach their shops. There was no RoI they could see given the lockdown restrictions and also keeping in mind the safety concerns.” 

    Another reason that Menon mentions for local advertisers saving ad money is the positive consumer sentiment, “Many local players were also saying that we are getting consumers even without advertising, why should we spend money then?” 

    The expectation from Onam was that more categories will start advertising during the period, but that did not really happen.

    Masteh shares, “The categories that were active during the previous months were pretty much the ones who were advertising. Healthcare kept spending big, gold retail started spending, and some other categories like FMCG and white goods kept spending.”

    Menon adds, “Local retailers were conscious of their ad spends but white goods and FMCG were fairly active during the period. It is also because these were industries where consumers are actively spending.” 

    On the other hand, Fourth Dimension Media Solutions CEO Shankar B feels that while Onam might not have been able to help the market recover fully, it has certainly set the ball rolling. 

    Dobhal quips, “I am hoping that at the overall level the ad spends would be much closer to what it was last year. The best part is that schemes and discounts on products are being extended, especially keeping the limited footfalls in the market due to time restrictions for keeping the shops open. Hence it is expected that advertisers to support their channel partners will let their activities go in September too! The positive in all this is that advertisers will now spread their activity for a longer period rather than planning for a few dates or weeks before the main festival.” 
     

  • TV ad volumes up; next challenge is lag between inventory & advertisers

    TV ad volumes up; next challenge is lag between inventory & advertisers

    NEW DELHI: Battling through a rough quarter with, television advertising is once again gaining momentum. As per a recent TAM AdEx data, the month of June 2020 witnessed an uptick of 46 per cent in ad volumes as compared to May 2020 and even the advertising duration picked up by 8000 hours as compared to the last month. While this looks like a positive trend indicating a better future for the TV industry, industry insiders feel that the medium has to still battle certain issues to get back to its older glory.

    Grapes Digital COO Shradha Agarwal shares that this increase in ad volumes is also because of the reason that certain slots for the spring-summer category were pre-booked by brands and those took up the ad slots as new programming began on certain genres. 

    “I have one client who had invested around Rs 2 crore for a big-budget campaign on television but before it could go on-air the lockdown happened. Now, as per the advertiser, they could not get their TV campaign cost back but instead got an option to put the campaign on hold, and that can be run later,” she notes. 

    As per mPlan CEO Parag Masteh most of the investments that television is enjoying today is from new investors and certain categories like healthcare and FMCG while big brands have still their marketing budgets slashed below 50 per cent. 

    “The current growth can be attributed to panic buying by certain categories and eventually digital is going to come up as a big challenge for television,” he insists. 

    As per TAM AdEx data, eight out of the top ten categories were from FMCG, including baby foods, vanishing creams, and artificial sweeteners. 

    Makani Creatives MD and co-founder Sameer Makani agrees that digital platforms like OTT will come up as a big challenge to television going ahead, “As brands are shifting their modes of communication from offline to online to broadcast, it may take time for TV ads to follow a smooth road. As digital advertising is cheaper as compared to others, it consumes the maximum share of advertising. 2020 has changed the strategies and approach of every advertiser and marketer and has forced them to increase the frequency of advertising.”

    The Media Ant co-founder Samir Chaudhary doesn’t think that digital will take TV's place anytime soon but as new shows come up, the medium is going to face big issues with the lag in inventories and advertisers eager to invest into television. 

    “As things normalise, other media will start getting their share back, and certainly TV will become stronger. But as ad inventories will go up with new content coming, there is going to be a lag in filling them up as (advertisers’) businesses will take another two to three months time to get back on their feet.” 

    He added that the only solution to this problem is what most channels are doing already, slashing inventory prices and offering discounts to advertisers. 

  • Kannada news channels clocked 10% hike in ad revenues during Covid2019 period

    Kannada news channels clocked 10% hike in ad revenues during Covid2019 period

    NEW DELHI: While most of the markets witnessed a slump in ad revenues across genres on television, Kannada news market was surprisingly on an upward spree during the past three months. While the overall Kannada market witnessed a dip of close to 72 per cent, compared to April-June 2019, when the overall ad spends were Rs 145 crore, news genre maintained a steady hold on advertising revenues, data in the possession of Indiantelevision.com reveals. 

    The Media Ant co-founder Sameer Choudhry tells Indiantelevision.com that the news genre witnessed an increase of about 10 per cent during the lockdown period. 

    Sharing an in-depth data, Vizeum Chennai associate general manager R Kumaran revealed that as compared to the same period in 2019, the ad revenues for Kannada news channels grew 18 per cent in April’20, 20 per cent in May’20, and 15 per cent in June’20. 

    mPlan CEO Parag Masteh attributes this growth to the increased news consumption in the state during the lockdown. He shares with us, “The audience in the state of Karnataka is more educated and even before Covid2019, the viewership on news channels used to give tough competition to other genres including the GEC. The number accelerated more in the Covid2019 times as the need for information grew more.”

    As per BARC+Nielsen weekly report on consumption trend during the lockdown, in week 20 (starting May 16), the growth in viewing minutes for Kannada news channels was a whopping 148 per cent. 

    While the ad revenues were scaling up for news channels during the past three months, as per TAM AdEx data, apart from Kasthuri News 24, which recorded a 15 per cent increase in the count of advertisers too, none of the other news channels witnessed positive growth. Overall, there was a 33 per cent drop in the tally of advertisers. 

    However, during the Covid2019 period, the numbers kept growing month-on-month. While comparing the count of advertisers in June’20 and April’20, TAM AdEx witnessed a 19 per cent growth, reveals the TAM AdEx data. 

    Masteh states that these numbers will continue to grow if the Covid2019 numbers stay on the lower margin in the state during the coming months. “However, with GECs slowly claiming their stake back, we can witness slight dips in the ad revenues on news channels, but the growth will remain upward if the pandemic remains contained.” 

    Kumaran adds, “In Karnataka, retail clients have started spending from June onwards compared to pre-Covid2019 on TV (across genre) followed slowly by other regional/national clients. If continues in July–Aug, Karnataka market will see more ad spend if relaxation continues. The upcoming festive season of Dussehra and Diwali will expectedly revive the overall industry.” 
     

  • TV ad volumes on Kannada channels grow as Covid2019 situation improves

    TV ad volumes on Kannada channels grow as Covid2019 situation improves

    NEW DELHI: The third biggest contributor to south India’s ad space, amounting to Rs 5,000 crore in the year 2019 (as per TAM AdEx South Side Story), Karnataka is a crowded space when it comes to advertisers and marketers both. With the hub of digital agencies and regional offices of many mainline agencies in Bengaluru, the market is a very competitive one too. And going by the words of industry insiders, probably, the least impacted by Covid19 lockdown. 

    Mplan CEO Parag Masteh tells Indiantelevision.com that lesser number of Covid2019 cases in Karnataka, compared to other southern states, and a positive market sentiment helped the Kannada media companies maintain a steady grip on their advertising revenues. News and movies genres had an easy time, but there was a good dip in GEC numbers. 

    “Though the nationwide lockdown and advertisers’ reluctance to splurge forced the TV market to lessen the ad rates by almost 50 per cent, the cumulative loss is nowhere near to what markets like Kerala faced. They, in fact, managed to maintain their revenue cycle in place.” 

    The Media Ant co-founder Samir Choudhry reveals, “Overall there is a dip of more than 25 per cent in business (Kannada-language channels) in Q2 (April-June) vs Q1 (January-March).” 

    Karnataka ad market is one of those where television still holds a greater affinity than other media and it remained the same during Coid2019 period, too. In fact, TV news genre managed to gain business during the time as per industry experts.  

    Choudhry adds, “When it comes to Kannada markets, we have seen an increase of 10 per cent in the business when it comes to news channels. But yes, there was more than 30 per cent drop for the remaining genres during the Covid2019 period.” 

    As per Masteh’s prognosis, news genre might have managed to hold 40-45 per cent of its regular business. 

    If we look at the overall share of the television ad market, the advertiser sentiment seemed to be gradually increasing as the situation improved and fresh programming began. 

    As per data shared by TAM AdEx, while there was a 32 per cent drop in overall ad volume across genre during the Covid2019 period, the numbers increased month-on-month. Ad volumes surged by 57 per cent in May and 84 per cent in June over the month of April.

    The top 10 channels, which consist of four channels from news genre and three each from GECs and movie genre, amounted for 50 per cent of the advertising volume shares. Top brands included HUL, RB, Brooke Bond Lipton, Wipro and Colgate Palmolive, all big national-level advertisers.

    The biggest sufferer in the market has been print and OOH for very obvious reasons; distribution problem for print and lack of advertiser interest in case of OOH. As the market slowly starts moving to normal, print is expected to get its advertiser share back sooner than later, but for OOH companies the fight is going to be tough. Even with lockdown restrictions gradually lifting, the OOH players are forced to sell the ad space at 90 per cent lesser than their original prices. This is hardly able to help them survive and pay salaries, shares an industry insider. 

    The Kannada-language market has already started seeing positivity when it comes to ad volumes and revenues will follow soon. But that is not happening right now as per Choudhry. 

    Masteh believes that the situation will start improving for the media players by the end of August if the Covid2019 numbers remain on a downward trend and the peak doesn’t hit the state, as expected to happen in September-October. 
     

  • Despite spike in viewership, Malayalam news channels record dip of 60% in ad revenues

    Despite spike in viewership, Malayalam news channels record dip of 60% in ad revenues

    NEW DELHI: While Covid2019 has had an unprecedented impact over businesses across the country in the past few months, the media and entertainment consumption witnessed some interesting upward trends during the time period. As per weekly data shared by BARC-Nielsen during the course of the nationwide lockdown, TV viewership peaked by 43 per cent (highest value, at week 13 as compared to pre Covid2019 i.e. Week 2 to Week 4), during the period. Time spent on TV was up by 7 per cent in week 20, as compared to the pre-covid2019 period. News genre was one of the biggest gainers when it came to viewer interest and eyeballs, with total viewership up by 15 per cent in week 20. 

    Malayalam news channels also witnessed a similar trend, recording a 141 per cent hike in viewership, recorded in week 20. However, this growing viewership did not result in the sort of advertising revenue it would have garnered in pre-covid2019 days. 

    While the number of advertisers did not see much of a dip across Malayalam news channels; as shared by TAM AdEx India, the number of advertisers in pre-covid days (Jan-March’20) was 440 and dipped to 352 in covid times (April 20-June 20), the ad revenues went down by as much as 40-60 per cent due to lower inventory pricing, shares an industry insider. 

    Madison Media chief buying officer Vinay Hegde shares with Indiantelevision.com, “Typically with the pandemic and the lockdown becoming the focal point, viewership as in other markets shifted to news and the spike was exponential. A major shift from GECs to news was inevitable and visible and the channels did their best to hold on to their rates and monetise on the spike. This genre managed to rake in some ad revenues, yet inventory fill rate was lower than the normal average. April actually saw a dip in ad spends by almost 25 per cent Q4 of LY, but in May there was a massive spike of 120 per cent.” 

    When it comes to FCTs, Mplan CEO Parag Masteh shares that the numbers were more or less similar for the top channels, as compared to pre-covid2019 times, with some even recording positive growth. 

    TAM AdEx India data reveals that News18 Kerala and Manorama News witnessed positive ad volume growth of 28 per cent and eight per cent, respectively, the ad volumes of channel 24 remained almost similar to pre-covid2019 times. 

    Mathrubhumi News CEO Mohan Nair says, “While we witnessed a 25 per cent spike in viewership during the period, the ad revenues dipped. I may say that because we couldn’t record some of our outdoor programmes and the news coverage was also centred primarily on Covid2019, for nearly two months we had hardly any business. If I look at these three months, we must have recorded a business of around 30 per cent of the pre-covid days.”

    Kairali News’ Suresh Kumar quips, “The FCTs dropped drastically for us and so did the advertiser number. There were very few regular clients from the jewellery segment who were active on our channel and most of the ad space was brought by government ads and the hospitals. Our ad revenues used to touch Rs one crore per month before Covid2019 and for the past three months, the figure stands below 50 per cent. One of the reasons is that we had to bring down our inventory prices by 30 per cent in most cases.” 

    Asianet News Network VP sales and marketing Unni Krishnan shares, “Though we recorded 3x ratings, the advertiser sentiment was really low. If you look at the Kerala ad market, retail clients are amongst the top advertisers on news channels and they were not active at all in the initial days. Though they are trying to make a comeback, it is not with the same budgets as they used to spend earlier. In fact, most of our major clients were not active during the past few months and the only ads we got were from some new clients.” 

    He adds, “These were not big-time clients. To give some numbers, if on a normal day a client used to come with an investment of Rs five lakh to Rs 10 lakh, we were getting billings of up to Rs 50,000 to Rs one lakh only. So, if you look at the number of advertisers, we used to get the same revenue from 10-20 clients earlier, which we got from 40-50 clients now.

    While Kumar, Nair and their teams reworked their inventory prices and announced some discounts to keep up the advertiser sentiment, Krishnan avoided changing ad rates. 

    “While most of our competitors were announcing discounts and combo packages to keep the advertiser sentiment positive, we at Asianet avoided it. It definitely caused us a bit of a loss in the initial days, and we had a slow start in April, but fortunately for us, the ratings improved. We also did not increase our inventory prices when the viewership peaked,” Krishnan highlights. 

    Nair shares, “The good thing that happened during the pandemic is that categories which earlier refrained from advertising on news genre like sanitisers and washing-related products have started advertising on our channels. While I am hopeful that the upcoming monsoon and Onam will bring in some positive movement from advertisers, if you look at Kerala, Covid2019 cases are again rising. And we can’t be sure what the situation will be in the coming months.” 

    Krishnan elucidates, “Kerala was the first state to recover, but if you look at some other markets like Chennai or Mumbai, the lockdown is still in place and the numbers of patients are continuously rising. Even in Kerala, fresh cases are coming up, and while earlier the number was 20-30 cases a day, it has now peaked to 120-130. Our all yoy projections have already gone for a toss. While Onam and monsoon are a good season for us, we can’t be sure of the situation then. Yes, July, which usually is dull for the Kerala news market, has shown signs of improvement for us; going ahead, market sentiments largely will decide our fate.” 

    As the lockdown restrictions ease and the bright festive period approaches, starting August, the channels are expecting their fortunes to improve but they are still apprehensive of the growing cases. 
     

  • Kerala ad market pins hopes on Onam to bring respite

    Kerala ad market pins hopes on Onam to bring respite

    NEW DELHI: The South Indian ad market is a flourishing one, moving on an upward trajectory for the past decade. In 2019, it accounted for 30.7 per cent of the overall ad expenditures in India, as revealed by TAM AdEx’s Southside story report, contributing Rs 21,500 crore to the industry. Kerala market alone contributed Rs 4200 crore to the pie. 

    However, the past two years have been pretty difficult for the Kerala market, which was washed by floods in 2018 and 2019, and then  Covid2019, becoming one of the first states to get impacted by the contagious pandemic. 

    If Mplan CEO Parag Masteh is to be believed, the novel coronavirus alone has led to a 80-90 per cent drop in the investment cycle by advertisers. 

    Madison Media chief buying officer Vinay Hegde tells Indiantelevision.com, “The dip in Kerala ad market due to Covid2019 is roughly estimated to be around 75 per cent and largely in line with most other markets. Expectedly, it was the “essentials” categories like FMCG, foods and CSR for Covid2019-related issues that were active. Retail, a major player in Kerala, was just about present, being reduced drastically to around eight to 10 per cent of regular months.” 

    Maitri Advertising managing director Raju Menon adds, “February to May are the best months for Kerala market because of the tourist and wedding season. Around 30 per cent of the overall yearly sales happen during this time. However, it was a complete washout for us because of the lockdown. There are a few markets that work really well here, including banks, real estate, loans, textile and gold. But the pandemic left a negative impact on everything.”

    He continues, “For us at Maitri, there was a 60 per cent loss in billing during this lockdown. Not only was there a dip in queries, but some of our old bills, from January-February, were not cleared as well.” 

    Menon also shares that a few categories like automobiles, especially two-wheelers segment performed well than others given the market sentiment, but overall the whole industry witnessed a massive dip in revenues.

    In terms of television advertising, GECs saw their revenues down by more than 80 per cent YoY, both due to low inventory sales as well as discounts, reveals Hegde. He adds, “With the pandemic and the lockdown becoming the focal point, viewership shifted to news and the spike was exponential. A major shift from GECs to news was inevitable and visible and the channels did their best to hold on to their rates and monetise on the spike. This genre managed to rake in some ad revenues, yet inventory fill rate was lower than the normal average. April actually saw a dip in ad spends by almost 25 per cent Q4 of LY, but in May there was a massive spike of 120 per cent with retail and other clients making a beeline for the news genre.” 

    However, according to Menon, this growth in ad spends doesn’t necessarily mean more revenue for news channels. “If I give you an example, when the chief minister or the health minister is addressing the state via news channels, you can’t run commercials during that. So, advertisers buy the space on L-band, which costs around 97 per cent lesser than a slot for a video commercial. So, if you would have spent Rs 100 on a channel for video ads, you are spending only Rs 3 for the spot on L-band. Additionally, the inventory prices are kept low as the advertisers don’t have much money to spend. They are more concerned about paying their own people and keep their businesses afloat with the production-supply chain shut for most categories.  In terms of revenues, I believe they must have recorded a minimal growth of three to four per cent at max.” 

    Masteh shares that apart from the news genre, the ad spends from GECs were reallocated to digital media, which became a core part of the marketing strategy for even those brands which earlier refrained from it. He is hopeful that OTT will continue to grow and garner advertisers’ attention from here on. 

    As the lockdown eases, the industry is hoping to witness some progress in the advertiser as well as the consumer sentiment. 

    Hedge states, “Ease of lockdown has definitely seen an improvement in advertiser sentiment accompanied by the many relief schemes announced by the government in an effort to boost consumer sentiment and hence, demand. While the damage in Q1 of FY21 will take some time to heal, the additional forecast of economy contracting also needs to be considered by advertisers going forward. However, not advertising may not be an option as a short-term or long-term strategic call and hence, as the lockdown is being eased, we are seeing advertisers flocking back. TV, OOH and radio may still take more time to recover and as it happens, the competition will follow the competition.” 

    The industry is pinning its hope on the Onam season to bring a much-needed respite. 

    Menon says, “Onam counts for around 60 per cent of sales in the state and we are hopeful that will bring the advertisers back to the market. However, it will depend on the rains that we have. There are predictions for a good monsoon, but if the rains are heavy like the past two years, it is going to be a washout for us again.”  

    Hedge further adds, “August will also see the advent of festive season and it would be imperative for the advertiser to be visible. Also, by that time, lockdown would have eased even further. June is already seeing a much higher level of inquiries from advertisers compared to April and May. With originals making a comeback, July onwards, we should be seeing a fair degree of normal activity in terms of inventory consumption. Onam is an important festival in Kerala and is between 30 August to 2 September. That should be signaling a major recovery.” 

    But this recovery will be tampered by the gloomy forecast by the national and international bodies of contraction and recession, which however does not seem to be on top of the mind of advertisers and they would be looking at the most efficient extraction from media for their brands while the broadcasters/publishers will be looking to monetise demand uplift to also compensate for the loss of the first quarter, Hegde concludes.