Advertisers on TV up by 161% in the last decade

A week is a long time in politics and clearly a decade is a pretty long time in the business of advertising. Let's have a look at how the business looked like a decade ago, and where does it stand now, in the medium of television.

Reports shared byTAM AdEx reveal that there were 7675 brands, 4241 advertisers across 370 categories, advertising on TV, in the year 2001. By the end of 2010, the three set of numbers had soared substantially, and changed to 18322 brands, 11056 advertisers across 410 categories, using TV as a medium to advertise.

An analysis done based on the duration of seconds a TVC was advertised for, showed that while advertising related to corporate/brand image was the top category on TV in 2001 with a market share of six percent, the same spiralled down to ninth rank among the top ten categories on TV in 2010.

Advertising on TV related to toilet soaps ranked second in 2001 with a market share of four percent. The same category registered itself as the top category in 2010, with a market share close to five percent.

Notable categories from 2001 that couldn't make it to the top ten in 2010 were advertising related to writing instruments (third rank), auto two-wheelers (eighth rank), internet services - general (ninth rank), and washing powder/liquids (tenth rank)

The categories that replaced the abovementioned in 2010 are cell-phone services (second rank), social advertisements (third rank), cell-phones (fifth rank), and fairness creams (eighth rank).

Source: TAM AdEx

Addressing the factors that drove consistently higher advertising for toilet soaps category on TV, Anindo Samajpati, category head - soaps, Godrej Consumer Products, said, "Toilet soaps is a competitive market with different players in it but it is a fairly measured category and hence the only way to sustainable growth is by gaining market share and advertising in media plays a key role in that case. Ad spend on TV becomes a no-brainer in such a scenario."

He also pointed out that since the product is widely penetrated, a mass brand needs to advertise both on C&S (cable and satellite) as well as on Doordarshan. He added that there is relatively low entry barrier for new players in this market. Therefore, a lot of people keep entering the market and fade away equally quickly once they fail to stand the test of quality. But they do end up spending a lot on advertising during that brief time.

Commenting on the new entrant cell-phone services' high rank in the 2010 list, Anuradha Aggarwal, vice president - marketing, brand communication and consumer insights, Vodafone, said, "Ten years ago, this category didn't really exist very strongly, mobile telephony was a very small set of telecom. But today it's a different market with a penetration level of 70%. It's probably the largest penetrated hardware related service in India. It's only natural that advertising spends went up, especially with so many new players entering the market and price wars making a huge impact thereafter. In the last five years, this market has simply exploded. "