“The face of the ad industry and media has changed beyond recognition in recent times. We see that the ad industry in general does not seem to attract the talents like it did in the ’80s and ’90s,” said N Murali, Director, The Hindu Group of Publications. He was speaking at the 65th anniversary of AdClub Madras on 29th October 2022,
So where has the talent gone? To various startups and other media organisations. He added that the social media landscape has also fragmented what is media itself. Therefore, the mainstream media must confess that it’s struggling a bit, he observed.
“I remember the days in the ’90s, print media had a share of 50pc of the total ad spends in the country. Today, it is hardly 25pc. Television and electronic media has grown much faster, but the latest entrant digital media is catching up with everything. Now, we see that digital media is almost 34 to 35pc of the overall ad spend and is bound to grow.”
The speaker pointed to data from FY 2021, which showed combined ad revenues of Google and Facebook at Rs.23,213 cr was higher than combined ad revenues of top 10 listed traditional media companies at Rs.8,396 cr.
He said that this is a trend that is unstoppable, citing UK media spends as example: “In the UK, digital media ad spends is more than the combined ad spends on print, TV, radio, and OOH.”
The agency biz
Speaking about the ad agency business, Murali said, “While it may be said that big ad agencies with specialisations in multiple disciplines and some small super-speciality or boutique agencies have done reasonably well, the middle-sized agencies are facing huge challenges and a lot of them have fallen by the wayside. In a way there has been a consolidation in the industry.”
He added, “I said the face of the industry has changed from what it was when we all started; those were the days of full service agencies. The unbundling happened around 20 years ago, the process came to India, which was unstoppable. But what’s happening now is that there is demand from clients for integration. If the clients have to deal with different sets of people for various means, I think it’s going to be very difficult for them. The huge agencies have units for multiple disciplines and they are able to handle under the same umbrella, but the expectations of clients in the future is going to be very different. In fact, there is a feeling that the consumer behaviour has changed so much that advertising as an industry has not moved fast enough.”
Some clients are realising the need for ‘full funnel marketing’, which means going beyond the top funnel of media to the bottom which includes technology, data analytics and the like, observed the former Ad Club President. “I think the ad agencies will have to bring in expertise from networks wherever they are,” he added.
“There is an interesting survey by Dentsu of CMOs in countries like the USA, UK, India, China, Brazil etc. where it emerged that marketers are not satisfied with the pace of change, they think ad agencies are lagging far behind consumer trends. What they need is horizontal creativity, which means expertise on every aspect of business, not just in campaigns and content but in media, customer experience, management, strategy, and commerce. It is going to be a new ball game,” he said.
Trust in print
He complimented all components of the industry for their resilience during Covid and coming out on the other side ‘brighter’.
“But, what print media has lost before and after Covid has not come back and as I mentioned earlier the share is 25pc or less. So, that’s one aspect that may be true for all mainstream media because social media is creating hell in the media space. Except, the only silver lining is some surveys have shown that readers have faith in mainstream media, particularly print media. That is what we can hope for in the future, whether it’s mass media or niche media. It will continue to be there in spite of digital media taking over our entire life,” he surmised.
