Category: MEDIA

Advertisers need to pay heed to the changing man

By Satbir Singh

While women and children are major influencers in the buying decision in many categories, most advertising is still aimed at men. Leave alone traditional men-oriented categories like automobiles, newer ones like skin whitening or lightening facewashes and the much abused deodorants are all over various media.

The laziest thought that many marketers and their agencies still work on when they’re targeting men is it’ll get you attention from the opposite sex. Cars have used it. Bikes do it. Deos are the most in-yourface with it. Suitings & shirtings have kept it at their core. However, society is changing. There’s a lot more equality between the sexes today (though we still have miles to go).

Multiple content consumption platforms to drive growth by 2020

By Monica Tata

By 2020, I see technology playing a huge role in the way consumers will consume content. Consumers will switch to HD television and technology enabled platforms. And that combined with the growth of ad-free channels, viewing experience for consumers will improve by leaps and bounds. I’m a true believer in specialised content and its growth in India as digitisation has opened up subscription revenues.

Advertising has always constituted a humungous share in revenue, but we’re slowly and gradually seeing distribution revenue for broadcasters in India increase. By 2020, I see a huge growth in subscription revenue and a lot of this growth will come from ad-free pay channels.

Men are no longer shy to come across as thoughtful and caring. They are delighted to be in the kitchen. With the kids. Men are socially and environmentally more aware and conscious. The need to do good is at the forefront. Political correctness is yet another facet that can be observed around men nowadays. Taking up causes aggressively is taking up a lot more of men’s time.

Men are fitter and trimmer than ever before. They have started taking care with their appearance. They are more experimental. They are no longer afraid to wear red trousers. Or yellow ones. If we look around us, we’ll see men are mostly changing for the better. Advertisers need to wake up to this.

Consumers will be more than willing to pay a premium to view content of their choice. In the case of English movies, the core TG – 16+ male audience – they are a loyal set of viewers who would stick to a channel brand provided there is quality content to be had on a daily basis.

I also see a lot of content consumption on different devices such as mobile phones and tablets. That, I think is going to be a challenge for broadcasters; to launch content on multiple platforms and therefore reaching out to a much wider audience. Consumers today, irrespective of their location-whether at home, office or on the move-are consuming content from websites and social platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. Net-net, by 2020, I see consumers evolving in terms of consuming content from different platforms enabled by technology, and not just TV. 

Are marketers targeting today’s woman right?

By Jasmin Sohrabji

Yes they are! Women as a marketer’s target group appear deceptively easy to reach. A lot of TV GRPs, and a bit of multi-media was considered a fairly acceptable template for a long time. Today, a lot more insight and instinct goes into understanding how best to target her; and the answer is not to take away from TV but to make the medium work harder, better and more engagingly for our most targeted, sort after consumer.

Previously a lot of our TV discussions stayed around how much prime, non-prime for more effective use of communication funds. Today, it’s more about content and integration rather than time slots. It’s more about in the show than on the show. One of the key changes we have seen over the years is how we define our women consumers. Earlier, the definitions were very broad based (women, 20-44 years ABC) and that in itself was deceptively comforting.

Telling a new story about the Indian woman

By KV Sridhar

A few days ago, twitter was abuzz with people exchanging, not NaMo quips, but an ad film. An ad-film that became the trending topic because it not just warmed the hearts of the people who watched it, but also created excitement born of possibilities and hope. The film produced by leading jewelry brand – Tanishq, broke two stereotypes that advertising often paints Indian women with – that of the fair bride and the first marriage. The wedding jewelry film instead told a riveting story of a dusky young mother and her little daughter as they cross the delicate threshold of a new life through the young mother’s marriage.

You thought you had covered all bases, and reached all your potential women consumers, but in fact you had possibly done very little justice to any specific consumer within this broad statistic. We were unable to call out any relevant, sensitive changes in media trends because of a much clubbed audience. Today, the definitions we operate on are more focused, narrowing both the age and SEC bands and allowing for subtle shifts in media consumption trends to be captured and built into the media plan.

But the biggest change of all is today we no longer put the cart before the horse. We are no longer given a fixed set of creative assets to plan around. So while TV continues to be the mainstay media of choice for this consumer, the starting point is no longer a TV+ recommendation, but a communication plan that’s built from base zero and then embraces mediums in size and number relevant to the task and the target. The annual plan discussions are more about what all rather than what else!.

At a time when the idea of the ‘Indian woman’ is changing at a fast pace and new imaginations are being embraced in its very definition, it is important to understand the new sensibilities of the ‘Indian woman’ and imperative that these sensibilities be reflected in the work we put out. We have started seeing insightful work that portrays women in fresh, positive ways gain the confidence of consumers, especially female consumers. The Girl Child film for ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ was one of the few messages that touched upon the dignity required to treat our girl children with.

Even when not addressing social issues and stereotypes directly, advertising needs to reflect the values of the modern Indian women. Brands like Whisper and Hero Pleasure have taken new and interesting dimensions to values of freedom and independence for young girls, underlining their determination to achieve things on their own terms. These brands have found creative ways of celebrating womanhood.

Even categories such as banking and financial services which are often alien by virtue of their information-laden messages have managed to strike a chord with women consumers through their portrayals of sensitive spouses and fathers, setting an example of respect and empathy even in simple, everyday, domestic situations. Brands like Idea have found interesting ways of showcasing equality in the daily grind that the husband and wife realize by exchanging their phones. Brands like Bournvita have ushered in new portrayals of parenting and motherhood as well.

However, in this process of change, some things still call to be approached with caution. Indian women might have private admissions about a lot of things but can be uncomfortable when a public form is given to it. The furor over certain female-hygiene products is a case in point. Another thing to note is that while harmless ‘masti’ is always welcome, brands stand the risk of looking down on women when the message is exaggerated.

A lot of deodorant ads fall prey to this. Nonetheless, the more we push our imagination, the more we will find real, relatable stories to tell; stories that capture the true spirit of Indian women and communicate it with creative expressions that are mindful of respect and dignity.

Living life online

By Kartik Sharma

“If you’re not online, you are completely out of the loop – you don’t have a life, you don’t really exist,” this is what my 15-yearold niece told me when I enquired about her being online all the time! For teens, it seems as if online is the new real world. Teens spend an average of 85 hours per week online and more than one-third of that time is devoted to social networking*. The time spent in a week by teens on social media is almost 10 times more than that on TV**!

Marketers are programmed to be present where their target group spends most of their time and social networking sites represent a huge component in the battle to win teenage eyeballs. The speed of information exchange, the feeling of community and the viral aspect of widgets, quizzes, contests and videos perfectly position these media to be seen by teens and share within their social spheres.

Smartphones to woo marketers in the next five years

By Venke Sharma

80 per cent of social media in India is consumed from mobile phones. Secondly, there is a very high use of What’sapp and other messengers. I believe a large part of content consumption will shift to mobile especially when there is faster speeds and much better mobile internet experiences. Feature phones still form a large segment in India and it is the feature phones where the discovery of Internet happens.

Many people in India are starting to discover internet through a feature phone and entry point of internet will be via platforms such as Facebook and Youtube. Another segment is smart-phone users and the mid segment which is in transition from feature phones to smart phones, and light internet user to a heavy internet user – where users will use their mobile phones to tweet and explore other social media platforms.

Facebook, is only second to Google by total visitors and reach, making it the second most visited website in India. However, the average time spent per visit on Facebook (17 min) is more than 5 times than that on Google (3.8 min)*! Marketers have welcomed social media for its ability to see dynamic, real-time results captured via metrics like ‘likes’ and ‘fan count’.

However, in the past two years, social media has moved beyond these metrics. This has also been validated by Maxus’ proprietary study, which was conducted to understand the value of a fan on Facebook. In this study, we had studied 13 brands catering to youth in the 18-35 years bracket and found that WOM plays a very important role for brands to build a strong relationship with the fans. We have also found that fans of a page, make for more loyal consumers than non-fans and they keep coming back to know more about the brand’s product offerings and other schemes.

Hence, it is evident that social media continues to be an important and effective medium in building the brand-fan relationship story.

William Wordsworth, in the early 19th century predicted that “The Child is the Father of Man”. This adage holds true today in the 21st century especially against the backdrop of social media.

* Source: Comscore, Sept’13 TG: MF 15-34

|** Source: IRS Q4’12 TG: MF 15-34. Maxus Proprietary Research.

Consumption of video is likely to increase and it comes with huge opportunities for broadcasters and stakeholders of the entertainment business. I also see time spent on TV going down as consumption of video content on mobile rises. That however, is not a threat to TV as a medium, but certainly the TV viewing time will go down. From a channel point of view providing content on multiple screens is going to very important as many people will use mobile devices to participate in social conversations, surf internet, download data, live streaming etc.

Over the next five to six years, I see consumers from tier 2 and tier 3 cities switching from feature phones to smart-phones – and from light internet mobile users to heavy internet mobile users. That is going to be a paradigm shift and a huge opportunity for marketers.