Advertising in Contemporary Society B.M.M.

semester V Contact : 9819093323

TRENDS IN ADVERTISING IN INDIA Advertising practitioners face many challenges in the form of rapidly changing technology, increased competition, shortage of resources, changing economic conditions, inflation and unemployment. Advertising is essential to the conduct of business firm as well as service organisation. Advertising is comprehensive in scope, contemporary in outlook and managerial in orientation. Advertising helps to pre-sell to customers i.e. to arouse their buying desire in advance. Advertising is most efficiently used with personal selling or

point-of-purchase display. Non-business enterprises have profitably used advertising e.g., family planning, recruitment in the army, water preservation, pollution control and physical fitness. Advertising pays for entertainment and educational aspects of contemporary life as well as reduced product cost e.g., increase in the number of units sold stimulates economies in the production process and lowers production cost making goods within reach of commonmen. The discussion outlined below indicates trends in advertising in India. (1) All-round growth of media: In the past sixty years, advertising in India has grown multi-fold. Today, India has about 8141 English dailies. Total circulation of all language newspapers is 13,30,87,588. India has roughly 17,000 weeklies and 20,000 biweekly, fortnightly and monthly magazines. Vernacular press thrives. Hindi dailies like Dainik Bhaskar, Jagran and Hindustan sell in lakhs of copies which carries ads to the Hindi heartland. When products and services are advertised in regional newspapers, it ensures much wider coverage. English literacy is only 11 percent. The number of ad agencies working in India has also multiplied. The opening of the Indian market and the emergence of middle class consumers have greatly helped fast development of advertising industry. (2) Invasion of branded products: More than 10,000 branded products are advertised in India with the various media-mix. Branded goods and services are regularly advertised on satellite TV and DD. Newspapers and magazines published in both English and vernacular languages reach the readers virtually ad packed. The range of products advertised covers "pin to a plane". (3) Growth of media business: The media, the advertisers and the ad agencies have
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Advertising in Contemporary Society B.M.M. semester V Contact : 9819093323

equally contributed to the fast growth of Indian advertising. Press has remained the most popular medium of advertising although TV has shown unprecedented growth. Overall economic prosperity has helped the business of ad agencies. Some of these agencies gained collaboration with foreign agencies. In terms of professional skills and techniques, ad agencies in India are well-equipped and world class. India is emerging as the third largest television market in the world. The television revenues are expected to reach $ 16 billion by 2015. During the first half of 2008, TV advertising saw a growth of 28% as compared to last year. (4) Rise of animation era: The trends in advertising has changed rapidly. Today we are living in animation era. A machine jumps up frog like and devours mosquitoes. "All Out" is thus promoted to be "Macharon ka Yamraj". A penguin declares Kelvinator Refrigerator to be the "coolest one". Vicks ki goli fights khick khich to clear the throat. In most cases they succeed in creating positive brand attitude. There is great scope for youngsters interested to make a career in animation business. (5) Increase of advertisers: As our country witnessed increase in industrial goods and consumer goods sector along with increase in service sector, there was greater need to communicate with the consumers. Every manufacturer had to become an advertiser and communicator to take advantage of the expanding business. This resulted into use of advertising in a big way. Of course, the Government remains the largest advertiser in the country. (6) Rapid changes in information technology (IT): The Indian IT and electronics industry recorded multi-fold increase. Today, all the famous global brands have either established production facilities in the country or have technical/financial collaborations. Because of this development wider choice of products are available having superior quality at competitive price. In order to ensure that consumers are well-served throughout the length and breadth of the country, advertising plays a role of paramount importance. (7) Advertising linked with sports and tourism: These are the days of mega sports events in cricket, hockey, football, athletics and so on. Large industrial houses are always willing to sponsor sports events because they get an opportunity to
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Advertising in Contemporary Society B.M.M. semester V Contact : 9819093323

advertise their products and services not only within India but also overseas. This kind of exposure is not possible otherwise. Tourism is a fast expanding business in India. Nowadays there are weekly films on tourist spots in India shown on TV providing relevant information. Some magazines devoted to travel and tourism have become very popular.
(8) Importance of tween power: Children aged between 8 and 12 are said to

represent tween market. The brand - aware child is the father of the brand councious-man. Every year children between 8 and 12 years spend a whopping Rs. 20,000 crore on every thing from clothes to food to recreation. No wonder, marketers are going all out to win them over. The current generation of tweens is technology-friendly. Even children five-six years older than current tweens did not get this kind of exposure.