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Insight: Looking into issues facing media agencies and advertisers

Do advertisers and their agencies live up to the expectations of media vehicles completely? What are the shortcomings that can be looked into for a template for the New Year

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Insight: Looking into issues facing media agencies and advertisers

Insight: Looking into issues facing media agencies and advertisers

Do advertisers and their agencies live up to the expectations of media vehicles completely? What are the shortcomings that can be looked into for a template for the New Year 

Niraj Sharma | Delhi | January 12, 2016

Mising arrows

Advertisers and their media agencies are often seen as lifelines for Indian media's advertising revenue. While the relationship between advertisers and media houses is symbiotic, neither side is perceived as living up to the expectations of other completely. Media panning, the thread between the two sides, has continuously evolved with time and adopted new technologies and templates to facilitate both ends with best possible understanding of the market. As MK Anand, MD & CEO, Times Network, puts it, “Media planning being a math based exercise has substantially gained with technology. It is only getting better. Planners and buyers and the entire profession, in fact, are now as sophisticated as any 21st century scientific research faculty.”

For Ten Sports and Taj Television CEO Rajesh Sethi, media planning also is a combination of an art and a science. According to him, “The scientific side is fairly straight forward. Congregate good data with the help of research, know the needs of the campaign and the client, and then just marry them.”

Despite all the sacred thoughts about media planning, media veterans see some scope of improvement with their vast experience gathered while dealing with planners for years. Sethi feels that the artistic aspect is the hardest to learn and to teach. “It takes experience and plenty of experiments, trial and error to get it right. The industry is very sluggish to follow this approach,” he noted.

RBNL CEO Tarun Katial adds, “We have an excellent rapport and working relationship with diverse media agencies. However, there are a few industry standards which we believe are imperative for the media agencies to look into and work upon in the year ahead.”

Issues facing planning & single data source

Acceptability and adoption of a single media data source for TV across the industry; data and logic led discussions and decisions; planners as brand custodians; inclusion of decision makers at the client's end in regular updates and briefs from agencies, tripartite engagements, complete ownership and interest at the agency level; evaluating and suggesting effective media options are some of the key points that agencies need to keep in mind for a better and effective 2016.

Tarun Katial Tarun Katial

Elaborating on these issues, Katial said, “Centralization of a single data source across the industry is vital. Though BARC has been by far acknowledged as the industry recommendation and standards, yet it has not been completely adopted by agencies. RAM is available only for four centres and a mix of IRS and RAM causes data inconsistency.”

Sethi pointed out that with the changeover of rating industry from TAM to BARC, the new system has not received with 100% open arms by media planners. “They still prefer to work according to the old system and generally follow set patterns to calculate GRPs and CPRPs for a brand,” he said.

India TV Managing Director Ritu Dhawan also feels that it is time to bury CPRP. “For far too long, agencies have resisted shifting from relative to absolute metrics, usually under the pretext that the data didn't support the change. With BARC ratings, that excuse is rendered specious. In 2016, let us start understanding and evangelising CPT and ensure that all negotiations shift to this parameter,” she said.

Media plans need to be TG specific

MK Anand MK Anand

According to Anand, “Though bucketing and old format led lines are blurring, some more improvement in that area remains. Planning can be even more format neutral and more TG specific.”

Sethi points out that usually planners focus more on GECs and movies channels as they deliver numbers and it is an easy escape for justifying the media plan to the client. They tend to ignore if the brand is represented correctly based on the target audience and not just numbers.

“Let me quote an example to elucidate the aforesaid. Our flagship property, WWE, is purely entertainment and despite giving good numbers, many a time gets eliminated from the media plan, as planners do not wish to select sports genre in their plans. Had the planner selected the property purely on programme genre, it would have qualified in every media plan,” he elaborates.

While perception based planning helps some media vehicles in terms of offering value for quality content, it comes in the way of emerging media brands. “At times media agencies use perception based planning leading to a selection of underperforming alternatives. Hence, it is important for them to implement data and logic led solutions,” adds Katial.

Expectations from agencies

Punit Goenka Punit Goenka

Punit Goenka, Managing Director and CEO of Zee Entertainment Enterprises, was sharp, short and to the point as usual in his expectations from media agencies. “Out of home component needs to be a part of a standard media plan presentation, especially mobile, and that too on a sustained basis. Innovation quotient has to be upped in plans and agencies have to show courage of conviction to elicit client support for investment and implementation,” said Goenka.

Katial expects planners to be brand custodians with core understating of all mediums while offering integrated solutions for brands. “Agencies should keep the client abreast of the changing media landscape and maintain a single point of contact in order to deliver an effective media plan,” he said.

“Agencies also need to re-look and evaluate how broadcasters are providing reach and engagement solutions backed with content for the brands. Media planners need to evaluate the options available with an open mind to come up with outstanding solutions. Lastly, a thorough knowledge of the client's business and requirements is important coupled with ownership and interest at the agency level,” adds Katial.

Rajesh Sethi Rajesh Sethi

Sethi's expectation from media agencies is that they should experiment more than restricting themselves to the conventional approach.

Dhawan expects the agencies to educate clients on the post-Rural viewership landscape and prepare broadcasters to plan, buy and pay fair prices for their plans. “In the longer run, the consolidation towards fair price works to the advantage of all stakeholders including the advertisers,” noted Dhawan.

Expectations from advertisers

Ritu Dhawan Ritu Dhawan

Since advertising is a serious business investment and must be dealt accordingly, Dhawan's only expectation from advertisers is that the most significant buying parameter shouldn't be the visible price tags. She explains, “We would want them to delve a little deep into the pricing mechanism. Fair pricing of advertising inventory ensures that broadcasters have adequate resources to reinvest in their business for better content and technology. This builds loyalty and extends time spent on television, thus improving deliveries for advertising messages.”

Goenka expects advertisers to support innovations that will connect better with consumers. Katial shares a similar view. “Year 2015 brought many changes in the media landscape. Riding on the wave of innovations, our overall experience with advertisers has been excellent. They are approachable and open to new ideas to build and grow their brands. We would love to see more such partnerships in 2016,” he said.

Anand's specific expectation from advertisers is to start valuing the over 16 million English television viewers of Times Network on a par with English newspaper readers. “Our combined viewership is in fact higher than all the leading English newspapers put together and arguably of the same or higher quality. And much like print, we are able to offer local and city specific viewership. We want to appeal to English newspaper advertisers to add us to their plans as a multiplier. You will be surprised at the results. English TV we believe is more closely related to English print as an advertising medium than language TV. For too long, English TV has played second fiddle and been taken as 'niche', when actually we deliver the most influential top 2% of the Indian audience pyramid,” he said.

According to Sethi, “There is lot of scope beyond live programming which also gains lot of traction from the viewers specifically in sports genre. Somehow, advertisers have not been able to capitalize/captivate on the non-live part such as branded content, AFPs, contests, etc. Advertisers should take more risk and should be more receptive to newer genres and programming and should understand the content beyond numbers.”

Dhawan says in conclusion, “Can advertisers begin to appreciate that media pricing is not meant to extort? Most broadcasters actually make little or no money, leading to a precarious existence, a steady deterioration in content quality, and eventually, loss of audiences,” she said.

The question now is whether all parties involved are listening and are prepared to rework the media planning template. That's a million-dollar question.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

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