MxMIndia

Tag: LookBack 2017

  • The PR and comms business has been gaining ground in marketing services, writes Siddhartha Mukherjee

    LookBack 2017: The Needle has started Moving

     

    By Siddhartha Mukherjee

     

    I am passionate about our industry. I believe in its capability and its inherent strengths. More so, having seen the advertising Industry very closely, my belief and eagerness for our industry to get accepted as the Communications Emperor has led me to often critique its shortcomings. However, if I were to sum up 2017, I can comfortably say that the needle has started moving!

     

    Below are some quick indicators of 2017 that makes me believe that very soon, the Paid Industry will have a tough time!

     

    From an Overall Industry Point of View:

    1. Talent: Endeavours are being made to create GOOD institutes that specifically cater to the needs of the Industry. While niche Institutes are cropping up, existing and established institutes are also trying to revamp their course curriculum and faculty.

    2. Recognition outside the Industry: Still rare but our Industry’s acknowledgement at Cannes continues to be steady.

    3. Recognition outside India: That India can lead and hoist its flag applies to our Swadesi Industry as well. Not just through campaign awards but even some of our Industry Captains got acknowledgedas Thought Leaders globally.

    4. Global PR Forums Show Interest in India: This year, quite a few Global Forums like IABC, Page Society, CIPR, etc. have officially shown interest in creating ain India.

    5. Growth Story: Despite a lull market, tightfisted spends and minimal agency fee hikes, this year, as per the PRCAI report, our Industry seems to have gathered a size of Rs. 1315 crore – a jump of 18% over last year!Digital and Social Media services were the star performers.

    6. PR needs PR through Measurement: Industry has realised the role of Measurement and how it can showcase the value PR brings for the Brand Custodians. The discussions on this topic caught pace this year. Not just that, the small but effective role of neutral third party measurement partner fortifying the Client-PR Agency bond has been welcomed.

     

    From a Client’s Point of View:

    1. PR Monitoring Vs Measurement: Many Corporates and Agencies have started realising the difference between PR Monitoring and Measurement. Earlier, they would only feel the need for the former. This year, the preference has tilted towards maintaining Measurement and Analytics as well.

    2. Shunning of Ad Value Equivalent: Many corporates this year gave up the use of Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE). Instead, they have resorted to showcasing their earned media efforts through exposure, engagement and conversion route.

    3. Nonperformance led to change of Agency: 2017 showed many instances where Clients moved on from non-delivering agencies based on performance numbers and report cards.

    4. Brand Exposure more through PR than Advertising: Given that our Industry is Product Launch dependent to maintain Client brand visibility, almost to the extent of 85%, we saw many sectors where Corporates used more of PR Exposures as compared to Advertising! 

    5. CorpComm working closer with Company Management: Saw two interesting developments this year. CorpComm desk being aligned to deliver results for both Business As Usual and Business Not As Usual. The concept of Media “Planning” created a space for itself. Second, some designation nomenclatures changing from the conventional Head of Corporate Communications to Head of Brand Communications. Indicates a positive shift!

     

    From a PR Agency’s Point of View:

    1. Boutique Agencies started getting noticed: Going by the various award platforms our industry enjoys, it seems that small agencies have started getting recognized as effective communicators and innovative brand builders.

    2. More PR Agency Professionals Reporting for Meetings on Time: Yes, to me, this a great indicator. PR Agency teams have reported for client meetings pretty much on time! While the back benchers continue with their sub-standard approach, there have been quite a few front benchers who have positively moved this simple but effective hygiene average!

    3. Willingness to create space for external measurement partners: Till recently, it was not normal for a PR Agency to proactively get an external measurement service provider to work for their client. This year, quite a few cases have come up where it was the Agency team which actually took the lead. 2017 showed good display of confidence, transparency and a tilt towards data and analytics!

    4. Moving towards a One-Stop Solutions Desk: It is a no-brainer that if one were to offer all the value added services from a single desk, for a client, it really does matter whether an agency began as an advertising or public relations agency. This year, PR Agencies took quite a few initiatives towards hiring specialist in the forms of Digital Marketing Experts, Social Media Experts, Creative Experts, Event Management experts, etc.

    5. Impetus on Training: This year, we saw agencies going all out to raise the confidence bar and diversity of their talent pool. Rigorous Training and Evaluation mechanisms have been rolled out by Agencies towards their employees – let us call them our Industry’s future Brand Ambassadors.

    6. Sustenance of Lower Rung Employees becoming stable: As an outcome of the previous point,Agencies are required to spend relatively lesser time towards filling up vacancies due to rolling attrition.

     

    The 2017 has started the ground work towards an explosive 2018! Good times to come for sure in the New Year!

     

  • In the third of our yearenders, Ranjona Banerji looks at how the year has been for newswallahs

    LookBack 2017: The Year in News Media

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The biggest news events of 2016 were Donald Trump and demonetisation. In 2017, we’ve had hangovers of both, if you forgive the allusion to what is going to happen to many of you in a few days.

    But the question for us, as ever, is how has the media responded to the year. In spite of all the television cheerleaders of demonetisation including those who gloated that the poor may have suffered but they were happy even if they were dead, by the middle of the year it was clear that the economy was not quite so overjoyed of being cashless. However, the results of the UP and Uttarakhand assembly elections which gave an overwhelming majority to the Bharatiya Janata Party was seen as a mandate for the prime minister and his schemes.

    Sadly, from that euphoria for the ruling party, especially amongst our TV colleagues, the figures from the Reserve Bank of India continued to be unhappy. The implementation of the Goods and Services Tax was so shoddy and badly done, that all that happiness that people had as they died standing in line to gain access to their own money evaporated and gave way to chaos.

    The launch of Republic TV with Arnab Goswami at the helm shook up the TV world, as expected. Bennett Coleman and Co accused Goswami of stealing stories and stealing streaks of fire across the TV screen. The first accusation had some merit – Goswami and his reporters apparently sat on information they had gathered on Times Now so that they could use them at Republic. As for burning questions (plus fake flames) and the Nation Wants to Know, these things are only important for TV addicts and the more gullible amongst the general population.

    The worst result of the launch of Republic TV is that Times Now has become worse than it ever was even in Goswami’s most belligerent and bellicose days. If Goswami and his new channel have abandoned all pretences of journalism, Times Now appears to have decided to either stoke communal disharmony at every step or when there is no fodder around, sink to extreme silliness.

    In the world away from television, we had some hits and misses. The venerable Economic and Political Weekly did not cover itself with glory when it sacked respected and senior journalist Paranjoy Guja Thakurtha as editor. The sticking point was an investigation into the Adani Group’s suspected financial finagles. It was a legal notice that supposedly spooked the EPW board and caused huge disquiet about the heart of a much-needed standalone publication.

    Rumours said that some senior journalists at the Economic Times had been asked to quit for misreading the UP election. Rumours also said that this had been done at the behest of the government which cannot take criticism. Rumours are rumours and either you can believe there is no smoke without fire – as any journalist would – or you can rant and rave about how jholawallahs continue to target the poor, downtrodden, innocent, unloved BJP and Modi.

    The Wire took up where EPW left off and did a massive exposure into BJP president Amit Shah’s son’s mysterious finances. It took a few days for only some in the rest of the media to look into Jay Shah’s case, with once again a huge rescue mission being launched by government and BJP-friendly media outlets. The division between journalists once more became clear.

    Caravan also did an enormous and detailed investigation into questions around the death of Judge Loya in 2014. The judge had been presiding over a case involving Amit Shah. The media silence was deafening at first. And then we had a somewhat sorry spectacle of a number of publications – including the not expected presence of The Indian Express – trying to debunk the Caravan story.

    As the year ended however, and as incidents of sectarian violence and communal disharmony created by Sangh Parivar affiliates increased, some popular columnists who had steadfastly stood by Prime Minister Modi for the past four or five years, standing changing their tune. Most prominent of these are Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Tavleen Singh and Sadanand Dhume.

    The American media remained steadfast in their condemnation of the worst of Donald Trump as US president and showed us up again and again.

    The winners of the year however live on social media. A number of young people took up and kept alive issues that need more widespread publicity and discussion from the traditional media. The first are all the various dangers and discrepancies in the Unique Identification or Aadhaar enrolment. The second is the right to privacy. Both are linked and both affect us all, right down to our core. These lawyers, activists and writers have ensured in the courts and on social media these key factors in our freedom as citizens are constantly simmering and humming on social media. They have, as a result, shown far greater understanding and maturity than many journalists.

    Some of whom remain sad jokes. Like Times Now’s obsession with the burning issue of Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s movie choices. What a way to end the year!

     

    ​Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. The views here are her own.

     

     

  • Shailesh Kapoor lists his Top 5 in terms of their ability to break the clutter and stand out in a crowded but struggling category

    LookBack 2017: Top 5 Hindi GEC Shows of 2017

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Twenty-seventee has been a poor year for Hindi GECs by all accounts, especially because weekday fiction content, which has been the staple viewer diet for 17 years now, struggled through the year. In contrast, the year saw significantly higher traction for non-fiction content.

     

    Here’s my list of the Top 5 Hindi GEC shows of the year, in terms of their ability to break the clutter and stand out in a crowded but struggling category.

     

    5. Kya Haal Mr. Paanchal?

    Star Bharat’s August launch, and its slow but steady rise since then, has been pivoted around a genre that has been grossly neglected by Hindi television for years now: Comedy. Based on a seemingly farcical premise – a man is forced to marry five women because a divine intervention goes all wrong – Kya Haal Mr. Paanchal managed to combine two important focal areas for prime-time GEC viewing – Family & Entertainment. With a sharp week-on-week rise, the show is set for a good run in 2018.

     

    4. Rising Star

    Rising Star has to be recognised simply for Colors’ brave attempt to play with technology and go for live content in prime time. In a country where even the biggest entertainment events are not aired live, going live twice a week for almost three months is no mean feat. The show brought freshness to an otherwise fatiguing singing reality genre. The second season is scheduled for early 2018, and should benefit from the first season’s visibility.

     

     

     

    3. Kundali Bhagya

    In a year when new daily soap launches fell like nine pins, Zee TV’s KundaliBhagya proved to be an exception. The idea of extending the KumkumBhagya franchise was a smart one, but KundaliBhagya went beyond that within its first two weeks, to showcase characters that are fresh and young, compared to what we see on daily soaps in general. In a scenario where new shows fatigue out within six months, this Balaji show is still growing its viewer base in its six months.

     

     

    2. Khatron Ke Khiladi

    In a year headlined by non-fiction, the ‘Pain In Spain’ season of KhatronKeKhiladi was a rollicking success. Rohit Shetty was in even better form that his previous outing on the show, packing a punch and offering a perfectly balanced mix of comedy, action and a unique style of anchoring, where the equation he shared with the participants seamlessly transcended diverse areas like friendliness, respect and fear. The participants themselves were a solid lot, with diverse personalities and an ability to express themselves, making the 2017 season easily the best season of KhatronKeKhiladi so far.

     

    1. Kaun Banega Crorepati

    A hands-down winner, Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) turned out to be one of the biggest success stories, not just on the television screen but in the digital space too, with its integration with Jio via a play-along module. The makers stripped the show of unnecessary melodrama, focusing on game play and light-hearted entertainment. Social messaging and life lessons were there too, but they were delivered as a sprinkling, rather than being shoved down our throats, like one of the earlier seasons.

    One doesn’t need to say much about Amitabh Bachchan’s prowess at hosting. But in this season, he outdid himself, in a rather entertaining, almost ‘chilled out’, yet sensitive avatar that clicked across markets, age groups and socio-economic strata alike.

    KBC 2017 has set a standard of content quality and viewer appeal that subsequent seasons of KBC will have to strive hard to match up to.

     

     

  • We kick off our yearend series with veteran adperson & MxM columnist Indrani Sen reflecting on adspends

    LookBack 2017: Struggling & Taxing year for A&M

     

    We kick off our ‘LookBack 2017’ series with veteran adperson and MxM columnist Indrani Sen reflecting on the all-important AdEx barometer

     

    By Indrani Sen

     

    During December, 2017 we have seen quite a few industry reviews about estimated adverting expenditure for 2017, a struggling and taxing year for the Media & Advertising Industry in India. On December11, 2017 we learnt that AdEx for the year 2017 will probably be less than industry expectation, but industry is hopeful that AdEx will revive next year.

     

    The industry was on a roller coaster ride of growth from 2013 to 2015 when the annual growth rate of advertising expenditure went up from 11.3% growth in 2013 to 16.5% in 2014 to 17.6% in 2015 (Pitch Madison Reports). The sudden assault of demonetisation drove the growth rate down to 12.5% in 2016, but as predicted by the Pitch Madison Report in February 2017, industry was expecting an increase in growth rate to 13.5% in 2017. However, the early estimate of AdEx indicates that the growth rate will drop by at least 1% to 12.5%, or perhaps more. Recovery from the effects of demonetisation has taken longer time than expected by the industry analysts; on top of that the GST imposed from April 2017, created enough confusion in the market place and arrested the growth of advertising expenditure. It is now expected that the growth rate will be 11/5% or less.

     

    The entire retail and distribution system of FMCG sector in India use to run largely on the system of cash transactions. Demonetisation imposed in November 2016 created total disruption in that system which was carried forward to 2017. Subsequently, the introduction of  GST added more confusion. From the manufacturing companies to the distributors to the retailers to the small kirana shops, all of them and their tax consultants /accountants are still trying to understand the implications of the new tax system. During 2017, the consumers recovered from the effects of the cash crunch induced by the demonetisation, but the choking of the distribution system has led to decline in sales affecting the advertising expenditure.

     

    It is not only the distribution system of the FMCG sector which has been affected. Distribution of other manufacturing sectors and agricultural goods are also riding the same rolling boat in troubled water. There used to be a lot of cash transactions in agricultural sector which is still exempted from income tax. The entire sector is trying to come to terms with making payments through banks (not to mention the digital transactions preferred by the government) and the new tax regime of GST.

     

    Recently on December 4, 2017, Zenith predicted the market value of AdEx as INR 53,918 crore. Zenith report was first published in June 2017 and revised in December, 2017. It was followed by another report by Magna, the centralised IPG Mediabrands resourceon December 11, 2017 with a prediction that ad expenditure in 2017 will be INR 60,972 crore. The DAN (Dentsu Aegis Network) report published in afaqs in June, 2017 predicted a 13.5% growth for the year, same as the Pitch Madison predicted rate. Earlier in February, 2017 the reports by GroupM and Pitch Madison were published with prediction of varying projections.

     

    While, the industry agrees that 2017 saw a decline in growth rate of advertising expenditure from 2016, the estimates for the growth rate and industry size vary from one source to the other as indicated in the following table.

    Estimated Advertising Expenditure     (INR Crore)
    Medium 2017

    Feb 2017

    		 2017

    Feb 2017

    		 2017

     Dec 2017

    		 2017

    Dec 2017
    PMAO TYNY ZENITH MAGNA
    TV 21296 27378 19869 24607
    Print 19869 18258 23982 20613
    Digital 9144 9490   6274 10227
    Radio 2008 2464    2122   2114
    Outdoor 3234 2942    2178   3411
    Cinema 601 672       393 N.A.
    Total 56152 61204    53918 60972
    Growth Rate % 13.5 10.0 11.0 11.1

     

    GroupM and Magna have estimated Indian advertising expenditure in 2017 as around INR 60,000 crore, while the estimates by Zenith and Pitch Madison hovers between INR 54,000 crore to 56,000 crore. While Madison predicted a growth of 13.5%, the other three agencies predicted growth of 10% to 11% in 2017 over 2016.  It is acceptable that estimates made by different agencies will vary to some extent. It would be a more comfortable situation for all of us if the ranking of ad expenditure on different medium remain in the same order. Currently, there is a difference of opinion on which medium has the highest share in the Indian advertising pie.

     

    As per an earlier Pitch Madison forecast, the industry was also expecting the AdEx to cross comfortably the mark of 50,000 crore in 2016, which fell short by few crores. In 2017, that mark will definitely be crossed, but without any fanfare as the overall moodin Media and Advertising industry is depressing. 2017 will go down in the history of Indian Advertising as an extended aftermath of demonetisation, which coupled with the woes of GST, slowed down the growth. Let us hope that in 2018, the industry will come to terms with GST, the distribution system will recover, the overall market situation will improve and growth rate of AdEx will rise.