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Victors and villains in India's
advertising
By Raja M
MUMBAI
- Riding an economy cantering at over 6 percent,
insiders in India's US$2.5 billion advertising industry
are predicting a growth rate of 15 to 18 percent, while
others conservatively peg prospects at 10 to 12 percent.
This upbeat mood reflected the global media's
perk up in 2003, after half a decade of either negative
or measly growth. The Paris-based World Association of
Newspapers (WAN) forecasts happier times in the next
five years for the international media and advertising
business.
WAN released a study at the end of
2003 showing strong growth for short and mid terms. In a
survey of 14 markets around the world,
PricewaterhouseCooper's annual Entertainment and Media
Outlook gives the global media industry an average
annual 4.8 percent growth rate between 2003 and 2007.
"For 2004, a 12 percent growth repeat seems
likely in India," says Andre Nair, South Asia chief
executive officer of MindShare, a WPP Group company, one
of the world's largest media investment management
companies.
"Given the macroeconomic conditions,
particularly with an early general election, some
positive steps in the disinvestment area will further
strengthen investor confidence," Nair told Asia Times
Online. Spearheading the growth, he expects, will be the
automobile sector, financial products and initial public
offerings [stocks], telecommunications - both telephone
companies and mobile phone makers - insurance, consumer
electronics, personal and notebook computers, fashion
and luxury goods.
The Indian advertising
industry enjoyed some glory in 2003. It hosted the
much-hyped AdAsia conference in Jaipur as well snagging
29 finalist nominations in the print and outdoor
categories at the Cannes advertising awards. The
effervescent Piyush Pandey, executive chairman of Ogilvy
& Mather India, was appointed president for the 2004
Cannes Lions Jury, the first Asian to hold the post.
Pandey is one of a few colorful characters
brightening the Indian advertising tribe. A former tea
taster and inter-state cricket player, Pandey is known
for his earthy ideas and iconoclastic outlook. Meanwhile
Nair, a squash player with a masters degree in
psychology, has a love for great train journeys like the
trans-Siberian rail route, and has had experience
working with Ogilvy and Mather in Singapore, Hong Kong,
Malaysia and New York. Prahlad Kakkar, an eccentric ad
filmmaker and gourmet, loves scuba diving. Bharat
Dabholkar, one of the pioneers of "Hinglish" in Indian
advertising - the hybrid of Hindi and English - scripts
and produces smash hit comic plays like Bottoms Up and
keeps live piranhas swimming in his office.
Inevitably, advertising is gathering Indian
media interest and TV programming. Following CNBC's
"Story Board", the BBC commissioned a 13-part series on
Indian advertising and marketing to be aired from March.
But every successful ad campaign needs a famous
face to back it up. The aging Bollywood icon Amitabh
Bachchan and cricketing superstar Sachin Tendulkar
continue their reign India's highest paid models.
Tendulkar's popularity is not surprising, given cricket
in India is a multi-million dollar media business, with
companies investing hugely in television ads and
sponsorships. Rates and ratings inevitably surge ahead
with the fortunes of the Indian cricket team. As much as
one-third of the Indian advertising growth rate is owed
to cricket.
During the cricket World Cup in
South Africa last year, where India stormed to the final
in Johannesburg but suffered a humiliating defeat to the
Australians, total advertising for the tournament scored
an astonishing $89 million. "Cricket will drive TV
spending growth in 2004," the pony-tailed Nair says.
"There is an unprecedented 100 percent inflation in
rates for live cricket broadcasts. The domestic series
against Australia and New Zealand was sold out within 24
hours of the channel announcing packages, again at a
huge premium."
India's forthcoming cricket tour
of Pakistan in March, after a troubled 15-year gap, is
expected to send ad spending through the roof. The
Pakistan Cricket Board has already declared an expected
income of around $9 million from the series.
Sporting events are enjoying growing advertising
support in India, a trend reflecting a society with an
increased amount of spending money and leisure time. The
Media Research Users Council conducted a Sections,
Pullouts and Attitudinal Readership Research, or SPARR,
which found that newspaper readers in Mumbai prefer
sports news to business. Interest in the usually
underdone business pages of newspapers was the lowest at
15 to 42 percent.
Business news receives
favorable treatment from TV news channels that are
perking up in India and increasingly attracting
advertisers. "The obvious reason could be the way news
channels are now packaging themselves in view of the
increased competition and the events occurring in the
current world scenario," says an ADEx India analysis.
Not only American TV networks made big money off
the Iraq war - and peace parleys between India and
Pakistan, for instance, are done to death by Indian TV
channels eyeing advertising revenue.
But there
is a villain threatening the promising 2004 media story,
and that is the long-drawn squabble between satellite TV
channels and Indian cable operators. The satellite TV
channels accuse cable TV operators of under-reporting
subscriptions, while the cable TV operators blame
satellite channels for overpricing and arm-twisting. The
running fracas usually results in periodic cable TV
channel blackouts. Fed up TV viewers are going to court.
The Delhi High Court admitted a public interest petition
seeking a curb on the number of advertisements in pay
channels.
Acting as an exasperated referee, the
Information and Broadcasting Ministry announced plans to
appoint an interim regulator. It wants to promote
transparency in the cable TV industry, regulate the
pricing of pay channels and the number of advertisements
and, of course, censor content.
Much of the
wrangling is over the new Conditional Access System, a
set-top box channel accessing system that is on trial in
Chennai and South Delhi. With national elections around
the corner, the Indian government feels more inclined to
hurriedly solve the cable TV tangle - one that will
impact many an Indian political, advertising and media
fortune.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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