MUMBAI: The much awaited Pitch – Madison Advertising Report 2019 was released this afternoon at an event in Mumbai amongst a high profile audience consisting of Madhusudan Gopalan, CEO, P&G, Manu Jain, Vice President, Xiaomi and Managing Director of Xiaomi India, Sunil Kataria, CEO - India and SAARC, Godrej Consumer Products Limited and other eminent people from the marketing and media world. 

Figures at a glance:

Key findings of the report:

A.    Overall:

1.      In absolute terms, Adex has grown from Rs. 53,138 crore to Rs. 60,908 crore, an addition of                        7,769 crores, the highest addition in one year in the last decade.

2.      The growth rate of 14.6% achieved in 2018 is almost double the growth rate achieved in 2017.

3.      TV still continues to be the largest contributor to Adex with 38% share, followed by Print at 32%, Digital at 19%. Outdoor, Radio and Cinema share has remained steady at 6%, 4% and 1% over the last 3 years.

B.   TV:

1)      TV grew by an unbelievable 19% to reach close to the   Rs. 23,500 crore mark, reinforcing regular Advertisers’ unshakable faith in this medium, no doubt aided by the robust measurement mechanism set up by our Industry. 

2)      This is the highest growth TV has witnessed in last 3 years. In terms of absolute numbers, TV advertising has grown by Rs. 3,782 crore in 2018.

3)      And its share in the Adex pie stands at 38%. Whilst its share has declined over the decade from 43% in 2009, it is significant that since 2015 it has increased its lead over Print and now the gap in share is as much as 6 percentage points.

4)      The main categories that have fueled the overall growth of Rs. 3,782 crores in 2018 are the evergreen FMCG (Rs. 1,660 crores) and Auto (Rs. 360 crores). E-commerce category too grew dramatically by 29% to reach Rs. 1,100 crores from Rs. 850 crores in 2017.

5)      FMCG continues to rule the roost contributing as much as 50% to the total Television Adex, followed by Telecom at 12% and Auto at 8%.

6)      Increase in FCT has also been a big contributing factor to the overall increase of 19% in the TV Advertising Market. The overall FCT demand in 2018 has increased by 12% led by growth in frequency channels and new channel launches.

C.   Print

1)      India probably is the only major market where Print Adex is actually growing year on year.

2)      Print grew by 4.4% during the year, marginally lower than our projection of 5%.

3)      However, Print continues to be 2nd highest contributor after Television with a share of 32%. And this share of Adex is also the highest in the world.

4)      The resilience of Print is brought out in the fact that it has 200,000 Advertisers and the number is growing, compared to TV which has only 12,000 Advertisers.

5)      Nearly 75%, of Print’s growth of Rs 820 crores is accounted by just 5 categories – FMCG, Education, Auto, Retail & E-commerce.

6)      In terms of Volume, Hindi publications continue to be ahead of English publications contributing 35% of the total volume, while share of English publications dropped by 2% and now contributes 25%.

D)  Digital

1)      The digital advertising market had an impressive growth of 26% in 2018. It has been growing at a compounded annual growth of 30%+ for last 10 years and 24% for last 5 years.

2)      The continued growth of digital is fueled by mobile, online video and social media, which are increasingly attracting more advertising investment.

3)      One of the key reasons for this growth has been the proliferation of OTT platforms. The OTT playing field has seen a 3.5x increase in number of players from just 9 players in 2016 to 30 players now.

4)      Digital Adex at Rs. 11,705 crores is now 19% of Adex in 2018. It was only 9% in 2013.

5)      Google and Facebook continue to dominate digital spends cornering 80% of the total digital pie.

E)   Forecast

1)      We are bullish about 2019 and expect a growth of 16.4% taking the total Adex to Rs. 70,888 crores.  The reasons for our high forecast are upcoming Parliamentary elections, increase in government spending to showcase its achievements, the upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, growth of OTT, increased spending in rural and India moving to a Consumption Society.

2)      In 2019, we believe highest growth will come from Digital at 33%, followed by Cinema at 30% (although on a very small base), followed by TV (18%), Radio (12%), Outdoor (11%) and                   Print (5%).

Says Madison World chairman Sam Balsara, “After two dull years, 2018 has seen significant growth in Television and Digital and we expect the momentum to continue in 2019. With this growth, India has regained its pole position of being the fastest growing advertising market in the world and is expected to retain this position even in 2019.

There is no doubt that for Advertisers, Media has become a complex subject and they need competent and experienced, creative media planners, working in enabling environments, provided by good media agencies to build their Brands.”