ITV

Tag: Samir Chaudhary

  • 3700+ advertisers active on television in Diwali week

    3700+ advertisers active on television in Diwali week

    NEW DELHI: As the ongoing festive season hits a crescendo this Saturday with Diwali, ad volumes on television are witnessing a steady rise. However, in terms of revenues, the industry is still struggling and money in the bank might clock at less than 10-15 per cent of what 2019 achieved, industry insiders have projected. 

    Wavemaker India managing partner Mansi Datta said that the advertising industry has seen demand rising and an almost comeback to similar ad volume levels to last year Diwali. “Festive period of Diwali has seen marketers hoping for a recovery in demand generation. This time frame was also quite a tempting one for advertisers with the presence of the high octane IPL, an equally fiery political scenario with Bihar elections, along with interesting reality format shows. TV, which has registered the quickest recovery, is witnessing demand levels similar to pre-Covid levels.”

    OMD Mudramax EVP and principal partner Navin Kathuria shared a similar overview as he elaborated that the early trends for Diwali point to inventories on television filling up fast. And these are only expected to grow as the festival draws closer. 

    The Media Ant co-founder Samir Chaudhary revealed that the advertiser count for Diwali week is 3700+ on television alone. 

    As per Kathuria, most of the festive categories are active on TV – e-commerce (Amazon, Flipkart, Pepperfry etc), cars, paints, white goods, apparel, retail, a few BFSI subcategories, footwear, and kitchen appliances. “This is in addition to the new emerging categories like edtech, online gaming, hand sanitizers etc. Of course, the regular or non-festive categories of FMCG, personal care, cosmetics, online food delivery, banking, OTC pharma products etc are present, as always,” he added. 

    Despite ad inventories filling up fast and advertiser sentiment turning upbeat even for categories which were otherwise muted during the pandemic-induced lockdown, television is still staggering in contrast to last year. 

    Both Chaudhary and Kathuria pointed out that while it is difficult to peg an exact number to compare, it is going to be difficult for TV ad revenues to pass the preceding year’s count. Kathuria, however, mentioned that it might be possible that the medium might come close to last year’s number. 

    An industry veteran, though, stated that it will be surprising if the numbers come close to 90 per cent of what was witnessed in 2019. 

    The industry is showing great positivity towards out-of-home advertising too, which has started picking up after a quarter of complete silence. 

    Datta elaborated, “OOH is seeing interesting trends with mobility reports showing the movement of people increasing away from home, into shopping areas, especially in upcountry cities. In urban centres, premium locations like airports have also shown a bounce-back of traffic levels. All this and more, has seen a lot of clients revaluating their interest in OOH solutions.” 

    One medium that is still struggling to achieve its pre-Covid glory is print. “Though advertising has increased as compared to the normal months, it is nowhere close to what it should be in the festive period. We are not witnessing multiple jackets, full-page ads, flaps etc which is a norm for publications during Diwali season. This year, though Diwali advertising is seen on print, the clutter is much lower compared to the last few years,” Kathuria noted. 

    Even though print has gained momentum during the last several weeks, in the end the advertising decision-making is led by efficiencies, pointed out Datta. “Hard-working formats are being preferred over big-sized impact formats. We have seen the demand for impactful formats like jackets going down. Our analysis shows that there’s been almost a 60 per cent plus drop in jackets consumption over last year’s Diwali.” 

    As has been the trend for most of the year, industry experts maintained that digital was again the most preferred choice for advertisers in Diwali season as well. Unlike other mediums, the platform is witnessing a better recovery and double-digit growth due to the benefits like real-time measurement and conversion tracking. 

    WATConsult VP – operations (west and south) Manika Juneja explained, “There is a noticeable difference between 2019 and 2020 festive planning & implementation which is primarily driven by consumer behaviour. There has been a surge in the first-time online shoppers from non-primary markets and the ways of offline and online shopping have evolved with propositions like scheduled in-store pickups, contactless delivery, online consultation and more. Brands which hadn’t considered the digital medium earlier are now hopping on the bandwagon at a faster pace for discoverability and consideration. There is a digital touchpoint everywhere for putting consumers’ mind at ease and providing them with an added experience to build trust and generate repeat visits.”

    She continued, “ROI-driven campaigns have now taken precedence and garnered the largest chunk of spends on digital. By its nature, e-commerce as a medium, has been the biggest driver of sales for brands in the new normal. Majority of the brands are strengthening their digital infrastructure to reach out to a larger consumer base. The IPL and festive overlap coupled with a 360-degree shift in consumer content consumption has given an added advantage to OTT platforms along with social and digital media this season.” 

    1702 Digital co-founder Mihir Joshi shared that the agency has witnessed DTC brands increase their spends on branding during the festive season, with as much as a 70 per cent uptick in the number of campaigns being fielded. “We’ve been witnessing an increase in performance marketing spends with our DTC clients. Brands are also coming to terms with this Covid-dominated year and realising that Diwali is the most positive peak of consumer sentiments that we are going to have. Hence, they are not getting cold feet to spend big on digital platforms.”

  • 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. 

  • Zee TV rejigs show strategy; adds comedy

    Zee TV rejigs show strategy; adds comedy

    MUMBAI: After a hiatus of nearly three months, television shows finally went on the floors in Mumbai and new episodes started airing from 13 July. GECs are leaving no stones unturned to create the buzz in the market and gain back their viewer interest.

    Zee Entertainment has announced its content comeback via a partnership with its brand partners. Zee collaborated with leading brands – Nestle Maggi, Amul Lassi, PepsiCo, Red Label, Cadbury Dairy Milk, ITC Dark Fantasy to gear up the nation for 13 July, the date of its daily content comeback on Zee TV. ZEEL chief consumer officer Prathyusha Agarwal says that the idea of the teaser was not to mention Zee. According to her the campaign wouldn’t have gone viral if a brand would have mentioned the name of the channel. The idea was to get multiplier reach and audience through a teaser-cum-reveal campaign.

    Agarwal notes that TV consumption has increased by 35 per cent and the channel did a predictive analysis with Nielsen to identify where it is going to settle across genres. The biggest variable that is dictating currently is people sitting at home and people going out for work. It gave the channel a fair idea about the available audience. From being a 'woman as a unit' it changed to 'family as a unit' and brought more people together and this, for her, was the big behavioural change that got established with Covid2019. 

    “We had a Zoom call with our viewers as it was important for us to know how our viewers are feeling. It was not just about what they are viewing but also about what kind of content they are missing. Attitudes and behaviours have changed. Earlier, the day consumption chart looked like one big hump during primetime. But with Covid2019, people are spending more time at home. So there is a non-primetime hump and then there is a primetime one. So, there are more audiences to cater," she shares.

    Given these changes, ZEEL has reworked on its Fixed Point Chart (FPC) strategy to understand how it will handle primetime and non-primetime viewers. "Shifts between genres have happened and supply dictated the demand. With fresh content coming in, the channel is looking at all the genres especially comedy. The channel is trying to introduce the element of comedy in shows through characters and changes in script,” she adds.

    Apart from that, she highlights that there will be no change in programming order. The channel is focusing on creating a larger bank of episodes if there are any stop starts. There is also no change in the inventory choices, it is tailor-made as per the brand.

    While talking about advertisers' response to the new normal, she says, “In the month of April, everyone was wondering what to do next; we didn’t have advertisers. They were also not able to meet the demand on ground. But July is looking very promising. Fill rates are completely back to normal. As the demand has increased significantly in July, I believe advertisers are also keen to meet the demand.”

    The Media Ant co-founder Samir Chaudhary thinks that there will be more advertisements in the non-primetime slot now. Because of the non-travelled behaviour, viewership patterns will remain the same, but the timing will be scattered.

    He adds that inventories will remain the same but more slots will be filled. He says, “Many FMCG brands are eager to advertise as IPL and other events did not happen. But they will be looking more at news channels than GECs because in the past few months the reach has predominantly come from news. However, they will be looking at other segments to advertise.”

    Agarwal further explains that there are different kinds of market. One is where people are not able to use a certain product or they are careful about its usage and for those customers it is critical for brands to create demand. In this situation they are finding ways to trigger demand. The  biggest and active advertisers are FMCG and CPG because people are consuming it a lot more than any other category.

    She adds, “There are decades where nothing happens and then there are weeks where decades happens. In these categories you have brand loyalty that will never change. But during Covid2019 for e.g., you have ten consumption occasions. Consumers were forced to sample other brands and other product options. Hence, it became critical for brands to get back the share. If there is great product and good pricing, consumers are likely to go back. In our business consumers belong to the overdrive consumption category. It is important to get an early mover advantage to gain share.”

    Chaudhary shares that advertising rates will come down by 30-40 per cent and channels will have to incentivise the rates for advertisers to come on board. He adds that as user sentiment has changed, people are buying fewer products so advertisers will get less profit.

    He also notes that most of the brands will go with their core messaging but they might twist their ideas to incorporate pandemic in it. Brands are choosing digital mediums for long ad formats but 30-second or short-form advertisements will continue on television. 

    For Zee TV, out-of-home medium acted as an announcer media, after which campaigns were released on other digital mediums. Agarwal believes that social media has a good number of audiences and platforms like WhatsApp or Telegram can make things viral quicker than word of mouth. The channel adopts a twin strategy for most of its content.

    Zee TV’s singing reality show Sa re ga ma also started production last week. The channel is adopting a hybrid production model to ensure safety and security. According to Agarwal, most of the post-production work is happening remotely. This move has helped it to bring content robustly.