The core purpose of advertising is to stir up consumer demand, and the latest edition of This Year Next Year, published by media space-buying agency GroupM, forecasts India’s ad spend at ₹80,123 crore in 2021, up 23.2% from 2020, a covid-crunched year that saw a 21.5% drop. The country, it notes, is projected to be the sixth largest contributor to incremental ad spends globally. Given our demand problem, this would be heartening. The report also says that the bulk of these ad budget increases will be grabbed by digital media. With audiences going online even faster after covid closed in, this won’t surprise anybody.
The easy measurability of user clicks to determine reach and impact partly explain why advertisers are sold on digital publicity. India’s deepening adoption of smartphones and various online tools only adds to its allure. But digital’s gain could be TV’s loss more than print media’s. The latter have a special edge. What one reads on paper is considered more trustworthy, so the accompanying ads arguably gain from a rub-off effect. For high-value offerings, in particular, there’s nothing quite like a print ad for readers to soak in and mull over.
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