In its ‘This Year, Next Year’ (TYNY) 2021 Report, GroupM estimates India’s advertising industry will make a substantial recovery in 2021 with ad investment expected to grow by over 23%.GroupM India’s report projects India’s advertising investment to reach an approximate figure of Rs. 80,123 crores, which is an estimated growth of 23.2% for 2021. India is currently rated the second-fastest growing market among the top 10 countries of the world and will be the sixth-largest contributor to ad spends in 2021 globally.
The report also identified a few key trends that are expected to influence the advertising industry. In the wake of the pandemic in 2020, there has been a significant shift in consumer behaviour and consumers have become far more conscious about health and hygiene, and are veering towards adopting brands that embeace care and empathy. The report says healthy cooking went up by 100% while there was a 52% rise in content consumption for pets and a 70% rise in searches related to yoga.
The extended lockdowns stimulated hyperlocalisation as indicated by the substantial surge in regional language news and content. Similar trends were observed in digital consumption in terms of more regional news and content consumption, especially on platforms such as Daily Hunt and Share Chat.
The report recommends
media buying should aim to match advertising messages with “real consumer behaviours’ and not mere “attributes” while brands need to embrace AI to drive personalisation at scale.
Brands are also looking to adopt pin-code level targeting owing to the diverse data points on audience or targeting based on “distribution pattern or market share in specific locations”. The report recommends media buying should aim to match advertising messages with “real consumer behaviours’ and not mere “attributes” while brands need to embrace AI to drive personalisation at scale.
Several OTT players achieved their subscriber targets 12-18 months ahead of planned schedule. This phenomenon was not only limited to live sport and premium video content, but also covered news, audio content, and premium domain-specific content through D2C platforms such as Substack.
Subscription is set to climb higher as global sporting events such as Euro 2020 and the Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to take place this year. With IPL 2021 returning within six months of its earlier edition and the ICC T20 (to be hosted in India), there are a series of events Indian sporting fans are looking forward to, which in turn will viewership and subscription to sporting channels while driving up ad spends.
