MxMIndia

Tag: Indrani Sen

  • Indrani Sen’s tribute to her old friend, an extraordinary man who walked tall in his lifetime and left a long tail of unforgettable impressions

    Remembering my friend, Pradeep Guha

     

     

    By Indrani Sen

     

    Indrani SenPradeep Guha would have been 70 today, had he not passed away last year on August 21 after a short battle with cancer which unfortunately was detected at the last stage. As I was not aware about his disease, the news of his death was a big shocker for me. The MxMIndia editor asked me then if I would like to do a piece on Pradeep and I declined.

     

    I met Pradeep Guha in Mumbai in 1976, when I was a rookie media planner in Ulka Advertising and he, a fresh graduate from St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, was a trainee in media sales with TOI. Pradeep was a few years younger than me, but we hit it off very well from our first meeting. He had been a left-leaning student leader in his college days and I had been actively involved with leftist student politics during my college and university days in Kolkata, yet both of us were disillusioned with the state of left politics in India. In our own ways both of us we were eager to explore the roles media can play in advertising and marketing industry. We had a lot to share and much to discuss. Gradually we became sounding boards for reviewing each other’s ideas.

     

    We discussed about how to use readership research more effectively for media planning and selling; we debated the scope of value additions and innovations in newspapers and speculated about the possibility of rate negotiations when the word was a taboo in the industry. Pradeep had an ability to think laterally ahead of his time and never failed to amaze me with his zest for new and innovative ideas and his energy for planning and executing their implementations. These inborn traits, which I found in him in his mid-twenties, later helped him to excel in his career and become a larger-than-life personality.

     

    I still recall visiting the Colaba office of ‘Centre of Education & Documentation’, Pradeep’s dream project where he had started to build a library, a resource and research centre based on clippings from published news and articles. He firmly believed that reports in print media had the latest information which published books did not have. Before the internet age, Pradeep was able to think out of the box and visualize the importance of having latest information at the fingertips. After Larry Page and Sergey Brin conceived Google in a dorm of the Stanford University and subsequently marketed Google Search in 1998, I recalled about Pradeep’s CED which had the same seed of idea minus the new media technology.

     

    In 1982, Sameer Jain took charge of BCCL and Pradeep Guha became one of his trusted lieutenants. During the eighties and nineties, Pradeep continued with BCCL was responsible for executing the vision of Sameer Jain and transformed the Times media sales department to Times Response, he mentored a formidable salesforce well trained in concepts of media planning, advertising and marketing. Under his guidance the rate cards for BCCL publications morphed to “Mastermind” encouraging advertisers and agencies to buy space in various newer/ smaller editions along with the main editions at reasonable prices ensuring no loss to the marginal editions. The concept of “Invitation Pricing” was also Pradeep’s brain child. He literally gave a new lease of life to the print media industry of India. He was the real architect behind the “Samir Jain Years” (ref Indian Media Business by Vanita Kohli Khanderkar) in print media.

     

    It is difficult to decide if Pradeep’s contribution was greater in space marketing or in brand building. He changed TOI and other BCCL publications to well defined brands supported by multiple branded properties. The Bombay Times Annual Party, Filmfare Awards, Femina Miss India, Femina Look of the Year, the Economic Times Entrepreneurship Awards all were turned from mere events into branding properties by Pradeep which built the brands individually and collectively built the group. He was also credited with conceptualizing the Page 3 Culture through TOI’s metro editions.

     

    Pradeep’s efforts behind lifting up the standard of the Femina Miss India show led to India’s successes at Miss World and Miss Universe. These branding properties built by him in turn accelerated the growth of other industries like beauty, modelling and Bollywood. Driven by his passion for advertising, he was responsible for associating BCCL with Cannes Lions and creating India’s visibility at Cannes Lions Festival. He was its first Country Representative from India and held that position for 10 consecutive years at Cannes. I became an ardent admirer of Pradeep as I watched his exponential growth over three decades in BCCL. I salute his other friends and admirers who took the initiative to name the lane before the Times of India building in Mumbai as “Pradeep Guha Chowk” earlier this year. A fleeting tribute to his monumental leadership.

     

    Meanwhile, I had come back to Kolkata for family reasons in mid-eighties. Pradeep was heading the Kolkata office of BCCL at that time, but he returned to Mumbai shortly to take charge of Times Response. Till mid-nineties I had opportunities to meet and catch up with Pradeep during either his visits to Times Kolkata office or my official trips to Mumbai. In 1996, Pradeep helped me to pull off a media coup when he agreed to publish and distribute the Official Handbook of Wills World Cup with TOI’s Mumbai and Delhi editions free of cost against the right of selling ad space in the handbooks. It was a copy book case of a win-win negotiation.

     

    After nearly 30 years, Pradeep left BCCL when he was President of the Times of India Group and a member of the Board of Directors to join as CEO of Zee Entertainment and launched the English daily DNA in 2005.  However, he left Zee after a short stint of 3 years and became an entrepreneur by purchasing 10% stake in 9X Media (where he remained as the MD till his last days) and launching his own consultancy firm. Pradeep had produced two films earlier, Fiza in 2000 and Tehzeeb in 2002; his third production Phir Kabhi was released in 2009 after his exit from the Zee Group.

     

    There were lot of speculation in the industry about his exit from BCCL and many predicted that Pradeep Guha’s best years were over. His critics were blissfully unaware that he continued to support our Ad Industry at large by dawning various hats during his tenure with BCCL as well as after his exit from BCCL. He was the President of the Advertising Club Bombay, President of the Indian Newspaper Society, Chairman of the National Readership Studies Council, Chairman of Ad Asia (Jaipur), Chairman of the Asian Federation of Advertising Associations (AFAA), the Vice President and Area Director of the International Advertising Association (IAA), Asia Pacific region and the first Chairman of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) which was launched in 2014 and started reporting TV ratings from 2015. Pradeep Guha was the Chairman of the Steering Committee of the successful World Congress of the International Advertising Association held in India for the first time in February 2019 at Kochi. At the time of his death in 2021, he was affiliated to the Board of Directors of Raymond Ltd, Pritish Nandy Communications Ltd and Whistling Woods International.  The Ad Industry had never before seen such a versatile leader who always delivered the desired result and many times exceeded the expectations!

     

    After the nineties, Pradeep and I had gradually drifted apart, meeting only in certain big industry dos where Pradeep used to be super busy with organising the shows. Whenever I could manage to snatch a few minutes with him for a chat, he was always the same old Pradeep with the same twinkle in his eyes and the same warmth in his smile. His wife Papia Guha recently requested me to write a few lines on him for inclusion in the coffee table book on him. However, in the small write up, I could not express all my thoughts, so here is my tribute to my old friend Pradeep Guha, an extraordinary man who walked tall during his life time and left a long tail of unforgettable impressions on many other men and women who were fortunate enough to come in contact with him.

     

  • Since August 2020 when she wrote on podcasts, it appears the podcast market has done remarkably well in India, writes Indrani Sen

    Indrani Sen: Tuning into Podcasts

    By Indrani Sen

     

    Indrani SenThe FICCI EY Report 2022 on Indian M&E Industry “Tuning into Consumer” has only a very brief mention of Podcasts as a popular audio alternative indicating that

    ►Many radio companies had started to experiment with podcasts, generating millions of listeners per month

    ► Popular categories included comedy, business, news, religion, and storytelling

    ► Monetisation of this content, though in its infancy, commenced at a platform level for a bouquet of podcasts”

     

    The report has a section on music where it indicates that digital revenues were 90% of the total music segment. It further states that streaming platform revenues (including YouTube) increased almost 22% in 2021 to INR12 billion, over 80% of which was advertising driven. It is difficult to figure out if the revenue earned by the streaming platforms include revenue earned through podcasts, most of which have non-musical content.

     

    On August 10, 2020, I wrote my column on the same issue. Link: https://www.mxmindia.com/2020/08/podcast-the-crawling-baby-is-walking-now/. It appears that since then the podcast market has done remarkably well in India. As per PWC’s Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2021-25, India is the third largest podcast listening market in the world with 57.6 million monthly listeners. A closer look at the variety as well as the width and depth of the content of the top Indian podcasts available to Indian listeners on various streaming platforms explains the reason behind the growing popularity of this medium.

     

    From “Hindu in Focus” on Spotify and Apple talking about current developments across the globe to “On The Contrary” on Apple, a India Development Review by Arun Maria, a former member of the Planning Commission and former Chairman of the Boston Consulting Group; from “Kahani Suno” hosted by Sameer Goswami revisiting classic stories written by Jaishankar Prasad and Munshi Premchand on RadioIndia and Gaana to “Indian Noir” a crime, horror and dark fantasy mix narrated and produced by Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner and voice actor Nikesh Murali on Spotify; from “The Taste of India” a recipe and cookery show available across various platforms to “The Mythpat podcast”  created and hosted by Mithilesh Patankar highlighting all the trends in the gaming industry on Spotify; from the “Maed in India” showcasing the best Indian independent musicians hosted by Mae Mariam Thomas available across various platforms to “The Musafir Stories”  hosted by Saif Omar and Faiza Khan talking about Indian travel destinations and allowing the travellers to share their experiences also available on various platforms, there is just no end to the variety of content catering to the interests of different consumers.

     

    Like The Taste of India,  Maed in India and The Musafir Stories mentioned above, many other podcasts are available across various platforms, notable among them are the comedy show “Internet Said So”, the Amit Verma show “Seen and the Unseen” giving in depth understanding of various subjects, “Paisa Vaisa” hosted by Anupam Gupta on personal finance, “On Purpose” hosted by Jay Shetty, a British Indian author, former monk and purpose coach on self help and “Figuring Out – How to grow business and brands” hosted by Raj Shamani, a successful entrepreneur.

     

    Many of the successful podcast shows have been running over last four to five years like Indian Noir (2018), The Musafir Stories (2017), Paisa Vaisa (2017), The Taste of India (2017). Another popular show Tumne Kisi Se Kabhi Pyaar Kiya Hai focussing on falling out of love and finding it again streaming on JioSaavn has entered into season 2.

     

    A recent article in Emarketerdaily has forecast that podcasts will account for more than one fourth of digital audio ad spend in US by the end of 2022.  The article has indicated “Most digital audio monetization will come from recorded music for the foreseeable future, but podcasts’ share of the market has grown so much—and will continue to do so—that it cannot be ignored by marketers. Once relegated to experimental budgets, podcasts are becoming a crucial component of multimedia ad campaigns.”

     

    The above is an indication that Indian advertisers and agencies need to consider more seriously the scope of using podcasts as a part of audio media options available to us. Podcasts also offer excellent scope for advertiser sponsored programmes. FM Radios also need to review how podcasts can help them to differentiate the content of one brand from the other in future.

     

    Acknowledgements:

    https://www.thebetterindia.com/284009/best-indian-podcasts-listen-spotify-apple-music/;

    https://www.gqindia.com/entertainment/content/best-indian-podcasts-of-2021

     

  • The re-start of ratings comes at a time when most annual deals for TV channels are negotiated, writes Indrani Sen

    Will BARC’s new policy for news ratings clear the mess?

     

     

    By Indrani Sen

     

    Indrani SenThe announcement was long overdue. Finally on last Thursday, the advertising and media industry was glued to the release of TV news channels’ ratings which was released by Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) after 17 months starting with Week 10, 2022.

     

    BARC announced that an Augmented Data Reporting Standards for news and special Interest genres has been developed and tested over some weeks before releasing the ratings to the industry. The revised approved standards prescribes that the audience estimates for these genres will be released every week based on a rolling average of ratings of 4-weeks to meet with the industry’s needs. BARC briefed their shareholders in details about the new method through webinar and Q&A sessions.

     

    The release of the ratings for week 10, 2022 was followed by the release of the past data for the previous 13 weeks from Week 49, 2021 to Week 9, 2022 though the ratings were not available from week 40, 2020 to week 9, 2021. It is to be noted that the channels within the news and special interest genre subscribing for BARC ratings were given an option to opt out form getting the details of the past data and consequently they have been clubbed together as “other channels” in the reports of the past 13 weeks.

     

    The renewal of reporting of the ratings of the news channels has come at a time when most of the annual deals for TV channels across different genres are planned and negotiated. Lately the free to air news channels have been up in arms against BARC accusing them of delaying tactics by not releasing the ratings of the news channels before the crucial period when decisions about annual distribution of TV ad revenues are made. BARC defended themselves with the argument that data processing as per the new methods and testing of the data had to be given adequate time.

     

    The document on ‘Policy for Augmented Data Reporting Standards for News & Special Interest Genres’ is available on the website of BARC India and clarifies the definitions of

    1. Genre-Language Classification of Channels and

    2. Definition of News and Special Interest Genres

     

    It also details out Augmented Data Reporting Standards which has been developed “In order to preserve data security and integrity and keep the cadence of advertisement planning consistent for all channels” (Source: https://www.barcindia.co.in/policy-updates/barc-india-policy-for-augmented-data-reporting-standards.pdf)

     

    Every week, BARC will release two databases of which the currency data will be a “4-week rolling average channel level audience estimates for the News and Special Interest genres and regular daily unrolled audience estimates for all other genres/channels.” This currency data will be available to all subscribers in the YUMI software and will be used for all transactions including rate negotiations. The second database will be weekly unrolled data and will be released only to broadcasters having one or more channels in the news and special interest category through a separate YUMI database and license. The broadcasters will only get to see the unrolled data for their own channels and not for their competitive channels. This unrolled data cannot be used for transactional purpose, but only for analysis of performance of own channels and future planning for the same. Many features of the currency data will not be available for the unrolled data. Respondent Level Data (RLD) audience estimate will be available for the news channels only on a rolling average of 4 weeks basis and under currency data and will not be given under unrolled data.

     

    The new policy has provision for Customized Event Reports (CER) with well defined target groups for different genres. It also provides Currency Data Usage Guidelines to the news and special interest genres. Finally, it has provisions for News Query Resolution for Current & Past Data with rules and regulations applicable for the same.

     

    On the whole, it seems that BARC India has come up with a technology driven solution for taking care of the issues of high variance and bounce found earlier in the audience estimates of News and Special Interest genre channels. The problem was largely related to low sample size tuned to these channels and their specific target audiences. Let us hope that this new policy would satisfy the channels in the News and Special Interest genre and will end their grievances against BARC India.

     

     

  • The current year promises to be good for adspend growth (over 2021) with PMAR predicting 20% and TYNY forecasting a 22% growth, notes Indrani Sen

    Indian ad industry nears 100k cr milestone

     

     

    By Indrani Sen

     

    Indrani SenLast week, both GroupM’s This Year Next Year (TYNY) and Madisons Media’s Pitch Madison Advertising Report (PMAR) got released and their basic findings have already been reported by all business and trade media. The general mood in the advertising industry is exuberant as both the reports have confirmed that AdEX zoomed in 2021, by 37% as per PMAR and by 26.5% as per TYNY in spite of the third wave of the pandemic. In 2021, India was the fastest growing market in the top 10 countries, ranking 9 globally and ranking 5 on incremental ad spend predicted for 2022.

     

    The current year also promises to be a good year for Indian ad industry with PMAR predicting 20% growth and TYNY predicting 22% growth in adspend in 2022 over 2021. However, this year the two reports raises a paradox, will the ad industry cross INR 100,000 crore milestone in 2022 as predicted by TYNY or touch 90,000 crore as predicted by PMAR? It seems that we will be celebrating the milestone of achieving INR 100,000 crore ad expenditure twice, once in 2022 by GroupM, its constituent agencies and clients and once again in 2023 by another large part of the industry who prefers to use PMAR.

     

    It is acceptable that two or more research studies done by different agencies may yield different estimates of adspends by media and as long as the trends are the same, all such estimates can be used by the industry. Indian media, advertisers and agencies have learned to live with different estimates for the industry size, growth rates as well as predictions from different sources including TYNY and PMAR. However, as the difference of almost INR 21,000 crore between the estimates for 2022 in the two reports is huge, it may be prudent to analyse the macro level statistics of PMAR and TYNY to find out the source of such huge difference.

     

    As digital, TV and print account for a total share of 94% to 96% of the total ad expenditure in both the reports, a review of the adspend across these three media will suffice for finding out the sources of the difference in estimates.

     

    Both GroupM and Madison Media have reported digital as the fastest growing media in 2021 and a continuity in the momentum of growth in 2022. In TYNY, digital adspends has equalled the TV adspends in 2021, where as in PMAR the digital adspends will equal or cross TV adspend in 2022.  Over the last three years, TYNY has been consistently reporting about INR 10,000 crore more in digital media ad spend than PMAR. In 2022 the ad spend in digital media is estimated to be INR 15,533 crore higher in TYNY than in PMAR.

     

     

    Similarly, in case of TV adspend, the estimate by TYNY was higher than TYNY by INR 10,000 crore in 2019, which reduced to INR 8000 crore in 2020 and 2021. However, in the estimate for 2022, the same has again become higher by INR 10,000 crore. So, the estimates for digital and TV taken together account for a difference of INR 25000 crore between TYNY and PMAR in their predictions of 2022.

     

     

    When it comes to print adspend, the table is turned as PMAR has been consistently estimating higher spends in print than TYNY. In 2022, PMAR’s prediction for print ad spend is INR 6000 crore higher than that of TYNY. So, by combining print with digital and TV and other traditional media, the difference of INR 25000 crore gets reduced to INR 21000 crore.

     

    Source: TYNY 2022 & PMAR 2022

     

    It seems a bit unfair that TYNY has condemned print adspends in India to almost zero growth in 2022. As TYNY is done as a global report, has this estimate for Indian print ad spend been influenced by the global scenario where in most countries print ad spends have been steadily declining for years?

     

    I have written about the difference in the findings of TYNY and PMAR earlier in www.mxmindia.com. I know that we will never really get to know the reasons for such huge differences between the estimates of TYNY and PMAR, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to explain the reasons for the same to students of media management in a classroom as there is a danger that they may get confused and lose faith in media research.

     

     

    Read past commentary by Indrani Sen at:


    https://www.mxmindia.com/2021/02/so-how-do-the-groupm-madison-forecasts-compare/

    https://www.mxmindia.com/2020/02/a-roller-coaster-ride-of-adspends/

    https://www.mxmindia.com/2020/02/well-pitched-delivery/

    https://www.mxmindia.com/2019/02/indian-ad-industry-are-happy-times-really-here-again/

    https://www.mxmindia.com/2018/02/indrani-sen-mind-the-tv-adex-gap/

    https://www.mxmindia.com/2017/02/what-is-the-real-size-of-indian-ad-industry/

    https://www.mxmindia.com/2016/02/indrani-sen-boomtime-for-media-a-review-of-the-pitch-madison-advertising-report-2016/

     

  • The concept of Valentine's Day has been promoted by national and regional TV channels who have made it an integral part of their content than by advertisement related to the concept, writes Indrani Sen

    Indrani Sen: Valentine’s Day Spreads Riding on Media Wings

    Indrani SenBy Indrani Sen

     

    Today is Valentine’s Day. Inspite of the clash of the concept of Valentine’s Day with our conservative religious traditions, which have been fueled in recent years with the rise of Hindutva, we find media and brands encouraging people to celebrate the day by showing their love for each other. The vigilance of the keepers of the Hindutva seems to be matched equally, if not by a better degree by the aggression of media bent on utilising the opportunity of doing brisk business on the occasion of the Valentine’s Day.

     

    Valentine’s Day, which is popular across the world, has its origin as a Christian Feast Day in honour of Saint Valentine. There are many legends associated with Saint Valentine, who died (or was executed) on February 14 in 269 AD in Rome. The Feast Day was established by Pope Gelasius in AD 496. Apparently, the day got associated with romantic love during the 14th and 15th century and gradually grew into an occasion for celebrating universal love by the 18th century in England. In modern times, it stands as an interesting example of cultural capitalism which has spread across the world riding on mass media and ably supported by marketers/ advertisers and their agencies.

     

    Very recently the concept of Valentine’s week is being promoted by giving a name to each of the day preceding the Valentine’s Day in that week and creating more opportunities for marketing and advertising (https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/valentines-week-from-roses-to-promises-everything-you-need-to-know-about-valentines-day-2751803). This concept is yet to catch on in India where it would be very difficult to promote Hug Day (February 12) and Kiss Day (February 13), but I am sure that chocolate manufacturers and toy manufactures would live to promote the Chocolate Day (February 9) and Teddy Day (February 10). The Rose Day (February 7) also holds promises for doing brisk business for flower sellers, but as it is not an organised industry, they may not be able to utilise the opportunity to its full extent, unless e-retailing comes to their rescue.

     

    The concept of Valentine’s Day has been promoted in India more by the national and regional TV channels who have made it an integral part of their content than by advertisement related to the concept. Each and every general entertainment (GEC) channels, be it in Hindi or in regional languages, plan to have special programmes on the Valentine’s Day as an integrated part of story in one of the serials running on the channel. The same is promoted on all channels owned by the TV Network and if it is a part of the marketing campaign of the TV channel, then the special programme on Valentine’s Day is advertised across other media, newspapers, FM Radio and hoardings. The viewers across tier II, tier III cities and even in smaller towns and rural areas, thus get educated about the celebration of love on the Valentine’s Day.

     

    The movie channels organise special screening of age-old romantic movies round the clock on the Valentine’s Day. This day is also considered to be a good day for launching a romantic movie online. The news channels try to do special features and grab every opportunity of broadcasting a news related to the Valentine’s Day celebrations. On the whole, Indian TV industry invests a lot of time, energy and money to promote the Valentine’s Day. There is no ready analysis of the ADEX available to assess if their efforts are being rewarded by the advertisers.

     

    The print industry, particularly the newspapers, do not have much opportunity for promoting the Valentine’s Day through their regular content. If Valentine’s Day falls on a Saturday or Sunday, then we find articles on the same in their weekend supplements. Years back, in the late eighties and early nineties, many English newspapers used to carry special supplements of classified ads where people could book space for sending Valentine’s Day messages to their loved ones. That practice has become obsolete now.

     

    Still, we find special Valentine’s Day advertisements in newspapers, usually from medium and small size manufacturers. This morning (Feb 14), I was surprised to find an advertisement in Bengali of “Khukumoni Sindur” in Ei Samoy, Kolkata, indicating that the concept has been integrated into our traditional symbol of marriage. The ad has a headline which when translated into English reads ‘Celebrating that colour’ meaning the red colour of sindoor, followed by the copy inside the heart which says “and all its power”. The brand signs off with just two words “With love Khukumoni Sindoor”.

     

    FM Radio also utilises the Valentine’s Day for holding sponsored programmes on various channels. It is also quite common to find activation programmes by FM stations in malls, etc. on this day.

     

    On the whole, traditional media in India is ensuring that Valentine’s Day becomes a day for celebrating love across the country. Needles to mention that their activities are supported by advertisers, some of whom also create special advertisement based on the Valentine’s Day theme.

     

  • The A&M sector was severely affected by the shrinking of our GDP, writes Indrani Sen

    Expectations from Union Budget 2022

     

     

    By Indrani Sen

     

    Indrani SenThe Budget session in the Parliament is going to begin today and tomorrow, February 1, 2022, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present Union Budget 2022. It’s an unprecedented situation when degrowth induced by pandemic has set back most industries in our economy by two years or more which has also been reflected in our GDP. The Advertising & Media (A&M) sector was severely affected by the shrinking of our GDP and researchers predicted last year that it would take the industry four to five years to recover to recover the pre-pandemic revenues across all media. What are the expectations of the A&M sector from the Union Budget at this critical juncture?

     

    The pandemic has accelerated the growth of digital media taking its access beyond the upper-class to a large middle-class population. Simultaneously, it has boosted investments in new digital opportunities in regional languages beyond textual content, search engines and e-commerce limited to English. In fact, during the sliding of advertising revenues under the cloud of Covid-19, digital media was able to resist degrowth. It is estimated that by next year the digital media will have a one third share of the Indian advertising pie.

     

    The digital industry is naturally expecting technology friendly taxation policy which will support its current growth momentum. However, unless the Union government combines the financial measures with suitable legal reforms later, the digital industry may not be able to take full advantage of the financial measures, if any, announced by the FM.

     

    The digital industry flourishes with the use of their technology by MSMEs and Start-Ups. Favourable tax relief, subsidies, exemption on FDI and credits policies for MSMEs and Stary-Ups will not only help their growth in non-metro and smaller towns, but will also help digital industry indirectly.

     

    The traditional media industry, particularly owners in the print and radio industry, have a lot of expectation from the Union Budget this year. The Print industry suffered both loss in advertising and circulation revenue in 2020 due to the lockdowns ushered by central and state governments following the out beak of the first wave of the pandemic. During the second wave of the pandemic, it was able to resist further degrowth of advertising revenue which was set on a path of recovery in the period between the two waves of the pandemic. The industry is expecting the FM to introduce an incentive package and to waive or reduce the 5% custom duty on import of newsprint and 12% custom duty on import of ink.

     

    The print industry also has pending demand for an upward revision of the DAVP rates which have not been revised for a considerable time period. Apart from increase in the DAVP rates, industry also has a pending appeal for issuing a directive that commercially viable PSOs and PSUs should pay for their display advertising at the commercial rate and not at the DAVP rates, which should be reserved only for the central and state governments advertising on various government schemes/initiatives.

     

    Radio advertising was the worst hit due to the pandemic and they have a pending long list of demands which includes relaxation on payment of license fees, reduction of GST on radio advertising spends, tax benefits on upgradation of technology to digital broadcasting and Capex expansion. FM radio owners are earnestly hoping that a few measures from their wish list would be implemented in the Budget 2022.

     

    The TV industry has been set on a comfortable course of recovery after the initial set back during the national lockdown. The industry has been fighting with the Union Government over many legal issues and taxation policies which are a part of the proposed regulations. TV manufacturers, however, want the FM to reduce the tax on TV sets from 28% to 18% or at least introduce a differential tax structure based on the features of the TV sets based on the argument that TV can no longer be described as a luxury durable.

     

    The advertising industry on the whole is expecting that this Budget will introduce some direct tax benefits for the consumers at large so that they can have higher disposable income which in turn will give a push to the sluggish demands which is being noticed in many product and service categories. We will know by tomorrow if they are hoping in vain or not.

     

  • It disrupt the current digital media consumption pattern of Indians, writes Indrani Sen

    Boom, Boom! India’s Short Form Video (SFV) market explodes. And how!

     

     

    By Indrani Sen

     

    Indrani SenThe Indian government’s ban on TikTok in June 2020 along with 50+ other Chinese apps was a blessing in disguise for the homegrown user generated short video apps. TikTok, introduced in India in September 2016, opened up a new category of users in digital media consumption and had almost 90% share of the total time spent by Indian netizens on creation and consumption of short video contents.

     

    In fact, as I wrote here on May 4, 2020, (https://www.mxmindia.com/2020/05/indrani-sen-tiktok-ticks-fast-in-india-during-lockdown/) during the first two weeks of the lockdown in 2020, TikTok along with Aarogya Setu were the two most favourite apps downloaded by the Indians.

     

    Six months after the ban on TikTok, we saw many homegrown apps like Times Internet’s MX TakaTak, ShareChat’s Moj, InMobi’s Roposo, Dailyhunt’s Josh, Tech4Billion Media’s Chingari, etc. trying hard to fill in the void left by the sudden disappearance of Tik Tok. In June 2021m the combined efforts of all the homegrown apps got back nearly 97% of daily active users compared to June 2020. Aggressive influencer marketing and content creation in local languages on these platforms were the two main factors which helped in getting back lapsed users as well as create new users. Many of these platforms initially used Tik Tok’s name for promoting their apps on digital media.

     

     

     

    A year after, in October 2021, a report by Redseer Consulting revealed that homegrown Indian short video apps have nearly 250 million monthly active users (MAU) compared to Tik Tok’s monthly active users (MAU) of 170 million users at the time of its closure in September 2020. These platforms’ offer of creating short videos in local languages as well as simple interfaces accessible by cheaper smartphones helped to make inroads to small towns and rural areas. The Redseer report estimated that active users spend up to 45 minutes daily on these platforms.

     

    The combined monthly active userbase (MAU) of the homegrown short video apps stood at 170-190 million beyond India’s 50 cities, as per the Redseer report titled ‘Short-form video – The Rise of Made in India Digital Content.’ The report stated that 60-62% of the short-form video users are from Tier 2+ cities, a proof of the fact that India’s short-form video (SFV) market has spread to “Bharat”. There is a huge scope of growth as compared to more than 90% of internet users in China using online videos, in India the penetration of online video users is below 60% of Internet users.

     

    India’s short-form video (SFV) market is set for an exponential growth over the next few years to 500-600 million by 2025. RedSeer has further predicted that short-form content would be overtaking the over-the-top (OTT) or streaming video content users by middle of this decade. The entertaining content supported by influencers has made short-form video the fastest-growing content category in Indian digital space. The marketing and advertising strategies of the major platforms have also changed as shown in the more recent advertisements of MX TakaTak featuring Virat Kohli and Chingari featuring Salman Khan.

     

    Last month, an article in www.exchange4media discussed how “after successfully filling in the void created by the ban of TikTok, the desi short-video platforms are now looking beyond advertising revenue”. Many of the platforms are now exploring revenue streams like live and social commerce and are actively driving the growth of live creator driven social commerce in India and the SFV market.

     

    Let me share a few examples of this changing scenario here. Trell, an early adopter, entered the social commerce space in 2020 by setting up Trell Shop marketplace which today offers 500+ brands. Moj has entered into a deal on video commerce partnership with Flipkart. Bolo Indya renamed itself Bolo LIVE in order to emerge as a leading social live-streaming platform in India. Roposo has fully transformed from a short video platform to a creator-led live entertainment commerce platform. Woovly has targeted youth in T2, T3 cities with short videos on lifestyle products through by short videos created by micro/ nano influencers in regional languages. Chingari has recently launched its own crypto token $Gari and NFT marketplace. $Gari token will become the default currency for transactions made on Chingari platform. All these moves have been possible due to various high profile investment deals made by these platforms.

     

    Our local short video apps also have a scope to go global. Dailyhunt launched their short video app Josh about a year back. Recently Josh featured in the Top 10 of App Store and Play Store downloads in May 2021. As per Sensor Tower, Josh ranked as the world’s 10th most downloaded app overall, and as eighth most downloaded on Play Store. Chingari’s crypto token is listed in top 13 exchanges across the world. There is no doubt that India’s SFV market is all set for an explosive growth in the coming years which will create a disruption in the current digital media consumption pattern of Indians.

     

  • The year for Media & Entertainment will perhaps be known as the year of Non-Fungible Tokens, writes Indrani Sen

    Looking Ahead at 2022

     

     

    By Indrani Sen

     

    Indrani SenThe Indian advertising industry showed a strong trend of recovery in the second half of 2021. The market became quite buoyant and industry experts began to predict a strong double-digit growth in advertising expenditure in 2022 with digital and TV driving the growth. Print, radio and outdoor were expected to recover their revenues faster than what was envisaged earlier. The experts making these predictions assumed that we would not have a Third Wave of Covid-19 in 2022 and there would not any major economic disruption.

     

    But, before 2021 ended, our world again became under the shadow of Covid-19 and its new variant Omicron. Over the last two days of 2021 and the first two days of 2022, almost all the states where the cases are rising, have taken various measures from partial lockdown to night curfew to stricter vigilance by the authorities. Though national health authorities have not yet declared this upsurge as the “third wave”, we need to recall that AdEx had a degrowth of 25% to 30% between April-June 2021 due to the effects of the second wave on our economy. As per our AdEx, the April to June quarter has the second highest level of advertising expenditure after the October to June (festive) quarter. The number of Covid-19 cases are increasing on a daily basis and according to an announcement made by Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on the first day of the new year in 24 hours India registered 27533 new Covid cases, a substantial spike in the ongoing resurgence of the pandemic. The current situation makes it extremely difficult to predict the trends of AdEx in 2022.

     

    The traditional media will bear the burnt of various regulatory guidelines if the situation becomes serious, particularly if Maharashtra and Delhi declare a partial or full lockdown. However, it is quite certain that digital media would be growing in spite of the resurgence of Covid-19 in India and certain new trends are going to emerge in 2022.

     

    We have been hearing lately a lot about NFT, the short form of Non-Fungible Tokens which are used to denote digital assets or cryptographic tokens available through the blockchain. The key idea on which NFT is based is non fungible, which means that it is a unique item which cannot be replaced with another similar item. Non-Fungible Tokens can be understood as basic digital assets, which are ‘copies’ of real or tangible objects/ actual instances and they come encoded with the same infrastructure of blockchain which enables the cryptocurrencies. NFT can be sold or bought between two different parties online, just like the cryptocurrencies. However, non-fungible tokens and cryptocurrencies have many differences. Although NFT has the word ‘token’ in its name, it’s not a virtual currency like Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH). But they both operate on the same underlying technical mechanism, the blockchain technology.

     

    NFT has unique identification codes and metadata which cannot be copied or replicated. NFT can be used to represent various types of digital assets like music, audio, video, photos, artworks and other digital files. It can be considered as a certificate of ownership of any digital content or digital asset owned by any company which has invaded not only the blockchain industry, but also the other media and our popular culture.

     

    Read a useful article in May, 2021( https://www.jpmorgan.com/commercial- banking/insights/future-blockchain-media-entertainment ) which discussed why blockchain is going to play an important role in Media and Entertainment industry. “Media and entertainment places a premium on protecting and monetizing intellectual property. For media companies, blockchain has industry-wide applications that can transform the way content is created, consumed and protected.” If the pandemic persists globally in 2022, then in media & entertainment industry 2022 will perhaps be known as the year of NFTs driven by the blockchain technology.

     

  • Advertisers may prefer Amazon as it reduces the risk of ads appearing in the wrong environment, writes Indrani Sen

    Digital Duopoly changes to Triopoly

     

     

    By Indrani Sen

     

    Indrani SenIt is established now, the Google and Facebook duopoly in digital advertising has been converted to a triopoly by Amazon. With the rapid growth of Amazon’s share, the global online advertising size is expected to cross $88 billion by end of 2021. Google and Facebook together hold above 50% market share with other major players like Amazon, Microsoft and Twitter competing with each other for the rest. The data released by eMarketer in October, 2021 for a period 2019-2023 shows that the combined share of Google and Facebook are going to decline further over the next two years to be just 50.5% in 2023 as against 55.2% in 2019. Along with Amazon, the triopoly will hold 65.1% share in the online advertising market in 2023. Industry experts feel that similar effects will soon be seen all across the world.

     

     

    A recent article (https://www.exchange4media.com/marketing-news/digital-advertising-is-not-a-two-horse-race-between-google-and-facebook-daryl-lee-117323.html) based on an interview of Darry Lee, the global CEO of IPG Mediabrands, was published using a quote from Darry Lee as the headline “Digital advertising is not a two-horse race between Google and Facebook.”

     

    In this connection, read recently an excellent analysis by P.K. Kannan, Dean’s Chair in marketing science in the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, who analysed the impact of increased Amazon’s presence in digital advertising and the reasons behind Amazon’s success( https://www.clickz.com/amazon-presence-digital-advertising/220935/).

     

    Prof. Kannan argued that in order to understand the unique advantage of Amazon, we need to address the basic question of what marketers gain from advertising online, which is primarily acquiring customers at the lowest cost. He argued that “Google and Facebook provide marketers access to the online traffic they control and use sophisticated targeting algorithms to match a marketing message to the right set of online users.” However, as we all are aware the final effectiveness of this targeting is based on the motivations and inclinations of the online consumers as they surf through different websites on the internet. A consumer may just be interested in interacting with her friends on Facebook. A visitor at Google may just be looking for references related to his research studies. Against this the motivations for consumers on Amazon is either shopping or searching for making a decision related to shopping. So, the chances of a consumer reacting to a context-appropriate message is much higher for visitors in Amazon, which increases the click through rates. Internet users are also in the right mindset when they visit the Amazon site than when they are on Google and Facebook.

     

    As the platform itself is a marketplace, Amazon has a unique advantage of having previous knowledge of shopping behaviour of the consumer and can use that to position the message of the advertiser more effectively and also use AI and other techniques more effectively to provide recommendations to the advertisers. Prof. Kannan argues that “Amazon Prime shoppers are an especially attractive segment for marketers to go after, and Amazon could charge even more for online ads targeting them.” With precise targeting brands advertised on Amazon may become more prominent with the shoppers quickly. This has two built-in benefits. Firstly, it enables in relationship building with the consumers and secondly, it improves the organic search rankings.

     

    In addition, a marketer may have to worry about the type of user generated content his/her ad would appear on Google’s YouTube or on Facebook. Amazon, on the other hand has a complete control of all the content that appears on its own e-commerce platform. Advertisers may prefer Amazon as it reduces the risk of ads appearing in the wrong environment.

     

    So, it seems almost certain that the digital duopoly of Google and Facebook is in the process of changing to a triopoly not just in the US market, but across the world in developed and developing countries.

     

  • Kantar predicts the brands that invest – in data, insight, people and marketing – will flourish beyond the rest, notes Indrani Sen

    Indrani Sen: Media Trends & Predictions 2022

    Indrani SenBy Indrani Sen

     

    Last week, Kantar released its report on Media Trends & Predictions across the world. The report talks about five important trends in 2022, “Video steaming: A complex and ever-evolving market”, “Remodeling the commercial internet: How will successful advertisers and media owners navigate through such radical changes”, “A different approach to data”, “Performance media and marketing: An expanding playground for brands” and finally “Life in a pandemic: And what it means now for brands and media”.

     

    John McCarthy, Strategic Content Director of the Media Division of Kantar, has said in the foreword: “This year, we’ve tightened our focus to examine five key themes, creating a report that mixes the most notable trends with evidence-guided predictions and insightful thought leadership.” Like the previous years, the report is an excellent mix of knowledge sharing interspersed with comments from senior executives of Kantar across the world tactically indicating how Kantar can help advertisers and media owners to navigate each area with their expertise.

     

    Video steaming: A complex and ever-evolving market

    The findings of Kantar’s TGI Global Quick View study of consumers in 25 markets shows that over half of internet-connected consumers claimed to have used over the last four weeks either Pay TV or video streaming services. Almost two-thirds of such consumers (65%) claimed they watch two or more hours of paid-for streamed content daily. As predicted in Kantar’s report for 2021, the influence of aggregators is continuing to increase and no sign of subscription fatigue is in sight giving broadcasters and platform operators new found confidence. Kantar’s SportsScope data shows a strong upswing in fan attitudes towards the most prominent streaming platforms for sport (and e-sports) over the last 12 months, particularly among younger age groups. Kantar predicts that the subscription model for SVOD will be gradually losing its power to drive long-term growth, broadcasters may get an upper hand as more audience research data are available for VOD content, content will continue to be the king and will hold the key to higher consumer engagement.

     

    Remodeling the commercial internet: How will successful advertisers and media owners navigate through such radical changes

    Over the last three decades, tracking cookies have played a crucial role to help the growth of the online advertising market. Google felt that the use of cookies had been pushed beyond their limits, both technologically and ethically and had planned to end the use of cookies by early 2022. However, earlier this year Google announced that the retirement of the cookies would be delayed by two years and would be a gradual process. Kantar has found through their research that majority of publishers are concerned about the inability to track online media via cookies and more than half of advertisers (59%) are concerned about the inability to track online media via cookies. The tech giants are yet to find a viable technology for replacing cookies, though everyone is experimenting. Kantar has predicted that end of the era of cookies will mark the beginning of an end for uncontrolled tech giants’ explosions, no single solution will be able to replace cookies and the panel -based data may get a new lease of life.

     

    A different approach to data

    Trends in 2021 has shown “marketers are continuing to allocate increasing proportions of their budgets to digital media. Growth in e-commerce and online video is fuelling digital advertising to take a forecast 58% share of the global advertising market in 2021, up from 48% in 2019.” In the survey done by Kantar 65% of marketers said consumer preference is now comfortably the biggest factor influencing media decisions. Kantar predicts that data on competitive intelligence will be a defining factor, brands will look for more first-party data enrichment for unlocking the power of their own data for building better relationships with consumers and data based behavioural planning with attitudinal overlays will be used more by brands.

     

    The survey done by Kantar shows the top-ranked challenges faced by brands globally and the gaps in the current data available to the marketers.

     

     

    Performance media and marketing: An expanding playground for brands

    The report comments “The pandemic witnessed many brands turning to performance-based strategies to survive, but after stunning growth comes a host of challenges – in worlds both real and invented”. As the pandemic continued, the world saw a growth in performance media as brands switched their advertising tactics under global work from home and stay at home orders. The growth of social commerce has been a notable trend for 2021 and Kantar’s survey has shown that 61% of online consumers are likely to purchase from social media platforms in future. Kantar has predicted that growth and sophistication of performance media will empower advertisers and their agency partners to boost efficiency for their campaigns supported by emerging measurement solutions. Kantar further indicated “The metaverse – a collective virtual shared space – will have implications online and in performance media as 5G expands and community-focused businesses, such as Facebook – which aims to hire 10,000 people to build its own metaverse – make serious investments in associated technologies”.

     

    Life in a pandemic: And what it means now for brands and media

    Kantar’s Covid-19 Barometer reveals, for example, just how far e-commerce has become embedded in our lives and similar effects which pandemic had on consumers across the world. After the initial shock of 2020, in spite of a presence of Covid-19across the world, many markets (including India) are on their way to recovery. Kantar’s Brand Z data for 2021 shows that the ‘building blocks’ of strong brands have held true throughout the pandemic, reflected in an advertising growth which is stronger than expected. Kantar predicts the brands that invest – in data, insight, people and marketing – will flourish beyond the rest, TV will continue to be the preferred backbone media channel of many brand campaigns and 2022 which promises to be a bumper year for sports will aid in the overall recovery of advertising investments.

     

    Kantar’s ad receptivity studies since 2001 has shown that consumers are generally much less positive about ads in online channels. This posed a dilemma for the marketers though the pandemic has accelerated the growth of online in every aspect of life including consumption of media. Kantar concludes by proclaiming that “The challenges of the pandemic will pale into insignificance against what unchecked climate change could unleash… Media plans will no longer just be about reach, frequency and driving results. The carbon footprint will be just as important”.

     

     

  • The name of the company would surely create an illusion of a monopoly, writes Indrani Sen

    Indrani Sen: Monopolising the Metaverse

    Indrani SenBy Indrani Sen

     

    Seventeen years after he launched Facebook from his university dorm in 2004, Mark Zuckerberg announced in a virtual press conference on October 29, 2021, a change of the corporate name of the company from Facebook Inc. to Meta Platforms Inc. which is being referred in short as Meta.

     

    A recent Amul topical ad on the ‘Meta’ change

    As explained by Zuckerberg, internet technology has moved on and the corporate name Facebook no longer fits in with the future vision of the company which is being built around the metaverse. “Over time, I hope that we are seen as a metaverse company and I want to anchor our work and our identity on what we’re building towards,” Zuckerberg said.

     

    The rebranding of the company name would align better with the objectives of the company at this stage when it plans to broaden its reach beyond social media into areas like virtual reality (VR). The various social media platforms owned by the social media giant, i.e. Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram would continue to retain their individual names and brand identities under the corporate branding of “Meta”.

     

    The metaverse a virtual-reality space in which users can interact, meet and play with a computer-generated environment and other users using virtual reality glasses, smartphone apps and other devices. The word “metaverse” has been coined from the two words “meta” and “universe”. Loosely defined, it is an extensive 3D online world where people interact via various “digital avatars.” The word meta is generally used as an adjective or as a prefix to a name, often indicating a change or a transformation or a great futuristic idea. Example of uses of metaverses, in some limited form, can already be found on platforms like VR Chat or video games like Second Life.

     

    Current development on use of metaverse is centred on addressing the technological limitations with modern virtual and augmented reality devices as well as expanding the use of metaverse spaces beyond business to retail applications, entertainment and education. Many digital technology organisations as well as entertainment and social media companies are investing in metaverse-related research and development for future usage.

     

    The metaverse in many ways is still a speculative future iteration of the Internet part of shared virtual reality, to be used in social media and other applications. The metaverse in a broader sense may not only refer to virtual worlds operated by social media companies but the entire spectrum of augmented reality across the world wide web.

     

    Critics of the metaverse are arguing that as a speculative concept it is overhyped. Same concept is being used as a part of public relation campaigns by organisations having vested interests. Privacy of user’s information and user’s addiction to platforms are concerns within the metaverse, as already found in the current challenges being faced by the social media and video game industries across the world.

     

    Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement to change Facebook’s name to Meta has caused a massive uproar in Israel as the word “meta” sounds like the Hebrew word for “dead”. There is also a news that a US-based Meta Company is contemplating to sue Facebook Inc. for Infringing on its it’s company name. Meta was founded by Menon Gribetz, then a student of Colombia University in 2013. Though the company met with some initial success, it had to declare itself as insolvent after its primary lender foreclosed in January 2019. It is doubtful if they have the financial strength to launch a legal battle against Zuckerberg’s company. A Berlin based migraine app developed by Newsenselab M-Sense Magazine has given a backhanded compliment to Facebook who seemingly has been inspired by the logo design of the e-magazine. It is unlikely that Facebook was aware about the existence of that app or its logo and the similarity id the logo design is most likely a creative coincidence which at times happen in the advertising industry.

     

    The change in the company name is an extremely clever move by Zuckerberg which can help his company to monopolise “the metaverse” space, though many other companies will be using such technologies and operating in the same space in near future. To a lay internet user, Meta Platforms inc. would appear as the original provider of metaverse technology and therefore would have an edge over many of their future competitors.  Meta Platforms Inc. would not be able to monopolise the metaverse, but the name of the company would surely create an illusion of a monopoly.

     

     

  • It is high time that the advertisers and the agencies take a stock of the situation and take corrective measures for ensuring the way forward for conducting cross-media audience research, writes Indrani Sen

    Indrani Sen: Is Indian Media Audience Research Going Backward?

    Indrani SenBy Indrani Sen

     

    Media Audience Research in India for the traditional media has definitely not moved forward over since the onset of Covid-19. The Indian National Readership Survey was last published for Q4 2019, MRUC’s contract with Nielsen ended along with it. In November 2019, a request for proposal (RFP) for conducting IRS was made by MRUC from various market research agencies for continuing with the study, but it appears now that no progress has been made in that direction over the last two years.

     

    In July 2020, MRUC had officially suspended IRS 2020 and had decided to return the money paid by the shareholders for that purpose. There has already been a two-year gap in the print audience research, which is likely to be extended further as MRUC has not yet selected a research agency for conducting IRS, let alone finding a solution for conducting the fieldwork in the new normal. I came across a news item on October 31, 2021 which indicated that MRUC is starting from scratch by inviting fresh proposals (https://www.allaboutnewspapers.com/mruc-inviting-research-partners-to-conduct-indian-readership-survey-irs/).

     

    BARC, which has been continuing during the pandemic with its regular TV measurement research through peoplemeters, also took a few backward steps with criticisms about its methodology and the silent death of its Digital Media Measurement Programme, Ekam, before it had a chance to be tested before implementation. In 2016, BARC announced with a lot of fanfare its intention of measuring digital media viewership and after a few months in 2017 tied up with Nielsen for two years in order to develop a neutral and independent cross-platform measurement solution.

     

    The contract with Nielsen ended in early 2019 with BARC officials unofficially commenting that it would develop its own digital measurement solution. After Nilsen’s exit, various advertisers started expressing doubts about BARC’s intention and capability for doing the cross-media research with TV and digital media. In October, 2019 Partha Dasgupta, then CEO of BARC resigned from BARC and the plan for Ekam, which was largely his brainchild, also got buried.

     

    After a year, in October 2020, Mumbai Police began investigating a possible tampering of TRP data by certain news channels. The entire episode made a severe dent in the reputation of BARC as a fair audience research agency. The case is yet to be resolved. Following this incident, in November 2020, Ministry of I&B set up an expert committee to review the guidelines for TV Rating agencies. The committee submitted its report to the MIB in January, 2021, however, the ministry is yet to make any announcement about the findings or any proposed new guidelines for TV Rating agencies.

     

    In October 2020, BARC Board announced the suspension of audience estimates and ratings for a period of three months after requesting its technical committee to review and augment the standards and methodology of measuring, estimating and reporting the TV Ratings data. The suspension has got extended beyond three months showing hardly any effect on the advertising revenue of the news channels. In September 2021, NBF (News Broadcasters Federation) again appealed to BARC for resuming the release of News Channels’ ratings, which however were not released before the festive season of 2021 (https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/the-curious-case-of-missing-tv-news-channel-ratings-11631127883629.html).

     

    Meantime, comScore continues to conduct independent audience research for digital media in India and Google and Meta (earlier Facebook) continue to provide the industry with their own analytics about digital audience. Nielsen and Kantar, two of the large international market research agency networks operating in India have announced their capabilities in conducting cross-media research. Earlier in 2021 https://www.printpower.eu/insight/cross-media/ wrote “The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) is spearheading a global ‘North Star’ initiative to standardise cross-media measurement through a panel and census framework that will help the industry get a greater understanding of reach and frequency. Such valuable multi-channel insights could prevent billions of dollars being wasted and improve customer experience through avoiding excessive ad frequency.”

     

    The same article also reported about the contract for the first world-wide total cross-media solutions project across TV, digital, radio and published media being awarded jointly to Kantar and Ipsos working in partnership with National Media Onderzoek (NMO) in the Netherlands. The article commented “This ground-breaking cross-measurement solution will deliver the building blocks for cross-media planning, allowing advertisers to better understand their consumers, improve the targeting of brand messages, determine how media triggers consumer purchase decisions and maximise ROI.”

     

    It is a pity that in India, where initiatives about media audience research were taken as early as in late 1960s with the first National Readership Survey (NRS) by ORG published in 1970 followed by second NRS in 1978 jointly by ORG and IMRB, the third NRS in 1983-84 by IMRB and the fourth NRS in 1990 jointly by IMRB and MARG before Indian Readership Survey (IRS) by MRUC began its journey, has failed to go forward in this field. It is high time that the advertisers and the agencies take a stock of the situation and take corrective measures for ensuring the way forward for conducting cross-media audience research.

     

    Indrani Sen is a veteran advertising professional and a media specialist. She is now an academic, and writes on MxMIndia every Monday. Her views here are personal