MEDIA PLANNING

The 'what', 'why' and 'how' of media planning in Chennai.

www.chennaibest.com spoke to a leading media planner from a prominent ad agency in the city.

The population base is the major factor influencing media decisions. Chennai has a total population of 5 million people, which is significantly higher than Bangalore. But when it comes to spending habits, Chennaites are more conservative. Inspite of having more disposable income, they will rather invest it in fixed deposits and such things, than spend on lifestyle-enhancing goods.

It depends on the product and the kind of people you are looking at. For example, RPG, a very Chennai-specific client had advertised in both The Hindu (English daily) and Dinathanthi (Tamil daily). Their target audience was the small businessman, trader and shopkeeper. And it was found that the vernacular ad had more impact and response from the said group than the mainstream ad.

Technically, it is possible to leave out The Hindu and still reach a lot of people through the vernacular medium. The vernacular is pretty strong, but it again depends on the product and the target audience.

The choice of medium depends on your product. How large an audience you want to cover, the money you are willing to spend and what you want done with it. Advertisers will first like to know whether, given the budget, they are getting the right mix of visibility. For example, for a budget of about Rs 30 lakh, you get 12 insertions in 'The Hindu' or around 95 airings on Television. So naturally, people will go in for the TV ad. But again you have to take into account the fact that if you advertise in Sun TV, your product will be viewed in 53 countries, but a local product which is irrelevant internationally, does not warrant such an exposure. You would rather go in for your local dailies and hit your target audience.

No, the neighbourhood dailies are not taken seriously, simply because there is no planned editorial and the content is frivolous. Even the reader does not take them seriously, as it is distributed free. Obviously, when you pay for your daily newspaper, you put some value to it. But when it comes free, you don't put any value to it. Most people hardly bother to go through it.

Yes, definitely. There are around seven channels in Tamil alone and the clutter level is huge. The viewer has around 7 options to tune into. A lot of fragmentation is happening. The only silver line is that Sun TV is the most dominant and has maximum viewership. All the others are just there. Surfing happens only among the rest of the channels. People eventually come back to watch their regular programmes on Sun.

No, not many people look at the cable channel as an advertising option seriously, since the viewership is suspect.

Yes, there is an overkill of ad messaging. But on a festival day a lot more viewership comes in than a regular day, as there are lots of contests announced throughout the day. People just watch whatever comes on, from almost seven in the morning to late in the night, even if it is mindless. These contests attract a lot of viewership. But then channel surfing is limited to remote sets and the total number of remote sets are still low in number.

Ability to spend. TRP only aids in choosing the programme, where you can advertise. Budget is the main criteria.

Do we have a choice? The thing is the people meter is the only option we have right now to gauge the frequently watched programme.

The daily soaps I guess. There are around 15 soaps across 4 channels. They start crying around 3.30 in the afternoon and go on till 11.00 in the night.

Advertising on the net, has it caught on?

Nationally, yes. Many advertisers are looking at net advertising seriously. Examples are music companies, publications, fmcgs etc. People are experimenting and spending resources in this medium.

Any site that makes sense across countries. Nobody goes through a brandsite for more than one or one-and-a half times. But various segments of people come to portals for various reasons. Brandsites will do better to have links through these sites. Portals can be the best medium or 'the' medium for advertisement, as they offer a little of something to everyone.

Very early days yet. People are talking about clicks per month, total number of pageviews, and click throughs. But there is no third party audit to justify these claims. I guess once some kind of standardisation comes in, it will become more clear.

Hoardings are the only truly city-specific medium. As the clutter is more here, you need more hoardings to be visible than in a city like Mumbai. Also hoardings are cheap here. In Mumbai, hoardings are just not done without vinyl. Paint is unacceptable. But it is different here. However, outdoors can never work independently. They should always have some other back-up medium.

Yes, of course. Today people are spending a lot more time commuting than before. If you look at a teenager's day, it will be like, from college to computer classes to music/dance lessons to coaching classes to discotheques. They are all the time on the move and radio is the medium for people on the move.

Brand launches, cultural events, special events by clubs (events that get secong page editorial coverage). Most of these events get corporate sponsorships.

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