Authored by Virendra Saini, Executive Director, Triton Communications
After coming to terms with all the repercussions of demonetization and GST, the Indian market revealed its growth potential in 2018; adding 10,000 crores in advertising spending from approximately 53,000 crores in 2017 to approximately 63,000 crores in 2018.
2018 has been a year of storytelling on platforms like OTT and movies where consumers have been connecting with great stories, genres and music. The popularity of these platforms opened up a new channel for advertisers and we sure did make the most of it. It was surprising to see penny-pinching Indians opting for paid subscriptions.
Although TV and print are still popular advertising channels, online is the fastest growing ad-spend channel in India as of 2018. With that being said, India has become a “video first” country this year with YouTube reaching over 245 million monthly active users. Brands capitalised on YouTube’s popularity by creating engaging ads that people truly loved and resonated/connected with.
Building on the trend of emotional story-telling, the advertisements this year were themed on bonds between family and friends such as Hyundai’s 20 years of Brilliant Moments ad or Fortune’s Atoot Pyaar Parose for its Biryani Classic product. Brands have also bet big on social experiments and real stories in 2018; This year many campaigns got on board real people for the narrative and featured their emotions on screen, campaigns such as Vick’s one in a million #touchofcare, UCB’s UnitedByHope and several others hit the right tune with consumers.
In a nutshell, Indian advertising in 2018 has been about the art of storytelling and standing true to the purpose of advertising which has always been a mirror to its people.
Forsee For 2019 Indian Advertising
Increase in advertising spends: With the Lok Sabha elections and ICC Cricket World Cup in 2019, advertising spends will definitely increase as compared to the year before, in fact a research by Zenith has cued that the advertising spend is expected to rise by 15% to Rs 72,169 crore 2019.
Voice Strategy will become an integral part of marketing plans
Alexa has over 45,000 skills, indicating how voice is continuing to grow. As people start adopting this technology, the brands will find a way to not only get more data from these devices but to us this platform to add real value to the consumer’s life. Major brands will start baking a voice strategy in their marketing plans.
Brand Experience will be the new era of marketing
Brands have recognised the importance of connecting personally with consumers and hence emphasize on providing brand experiences. This has lead to activations gaining major momentum. In 2019, the key growth drivers will be digital activation, sports leagues (IPL, ISL, ProKabbadi etc), rural expansion and government initiatives followed by intellectual properties (IPs), personal events, product launches, expansion of mini-metros and increasing below-the-line (BTL) spends. Our Activation Wing ZtoA marketing is all set to lead this trend into the next year.
Digital spends will be cued towards mobile
The significant improvement in availability of high-speed networks at a lower cost is making a huge impact in the efficiency metrics of digital media. As this continues it will support the faster growth of Digital advertising. Marketers will need to be prepared to leverage this change and maximise engagement with customers thereby delivering greater returns for the brand.
With fast adoption of technology and innovation, there will be a substantial shift towards mobile and smart devices. 5G is going to be the rocket fuel we’ve all been waiting for from a mobile data point of view. Websites will load in the blink of an eye, HD films will download in seconds and buffering will be a distant memory. 5G will also vastly increase the speed that machines communicate with one other As a result, mobile online video ads will be the main drivers of growth within digital ad spend across the region. This will lead to more media spends on digital compared to Television.
(This is an authored article and views expressed do not in any way represent the views of tvnews4u.com)
