Political parties likely to spend Rs 800 cr on ads

Manash Pratim Bhuyan

New Delhi, Apr 24 (PTI) The media industry, among the
first to see revenue dry up due to the economic slowdown, is
expected to be one of the major beneficiaries of this election
for which ad spend is pegged at around Rs 800 crore.

Experts say the total advertisement spending by the
political parties would be around Rs 800 crore. The Congress
and the BJP alone could spend over Rs 400 crore on ads on
television, radio and newspapers.

The major political parties are spending a significant
portion of their poll budget on advertisements.

"The media sector is going through a bad phase as even
leading MNCs are cutting back on advertising. So the
advertisement spending by political parties will definitely
help the media sector," said Bhaskar Rao Chairman of Centre
for Media Studies.

However, CEO of NDTV Media Raj Naik said a major chunk of
the advertisement spending by the political parties is going
to general entertainment and regional TV channels. "The news
channels are not getting that much," he said.

Rao said most of the leading media houses have reported
higher revenue generation in the fourth quarter of the
previous financial year due to elections.

Rohit Gupta of Adwaves Advertising, a media buying
agency, said media sector will be benefitted by the election
as it would "infuse huge sums of money" into the industry.

Major political parties including the Congress and the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have already hired media buying
agencies to buy slots in television channels so that the
impact is maximum.

An official of Group-M owned Mindshare, the agency which
is handling Congress' media planning and buying, refused to
divulge the details of the party's total advertising
expenditure but added that the amount is "significant".

Mindshare has booked slots for Congress' advertisement on
major TV channels including news channels. "The advertisement
spending will definitely help the media sector," the official
wished not to be named said.

Rao said the total advertisement spending by the
political parties will be around Rs 800 crore which is almost
seven per cent of the total annual advertisement the media
sector receives.

As per the estimates of CMS, about Rs 10,000 crore could
be spent during the elections of Lok Sabha (lower house of
Parliament), which includes about Rs 2,000 crore by the
Election Commission and other government agencies and the
remaining Rs 8,000 crore by the political parties and
candidates for campaigning.

Realising the marketing potential during the mammoth
election process, various private companies have also started
websites appealing voters to exercise their franchise.

To seize the opportunity, major TV news channels
including CNN-IBN and NDTV have set up dedicated websites to
provide information related to the mammoth election.

To cash on the opportunity Google India has set up an
online elections centre in association with leading daily The
Hindustan Times.

Google has also launched an official community, The
Voice of Youth, on its social networking site Orkut.

This election has witnessed a massive online voter
awareness programme as websites like Indian-Elections.com,
IndiaNumbers.com, Jaagore.com, IndiaVoting.com are running
campaign to encourage voters to vote.

With nearly 10 crore voters below the age of 25, the
election is a huge opportunity for the companies to connect
with youths, Rao said. PTI