Digital didn’t kill any star

A prominent ad agency chief who was a part of the audience asked if anyone could even remember a digital ad in recent times,as opposed to print and television. But there were others who argued that the debate itself was outdated. Media and advertising agencies should come up with media agnostic solutions without pitting one against the other. Prasanth Mohanachandran,founder of Agencydigi chose not to comment on the debate,but said that increasingly,print and television were getting digitised. The iTimes initiative which allowed people to customise content was a step in the same direction. “It’s a misnomer to think of digital,as separate from print and television,” said Mohanachandran.

“The creative community faces a new world order and it is an order understood better by young people,” said Satyajit Sen,chief executive,Zenith Optimedia,” The creative theorem is so much different from what you’ve seen before. Here is Google,all pervasive and forcing countries to debate and change privacy laws. Establishment agencies are still learning how to deal with the change in status quo and as with anything else that is new,there is some resistance.” Sen also said that the absence of creative super stars in digital,like a Prasoon Joshi,also worked against the medium.

Mahesh Murthy of Pinstorm flagged off the IAA debate by pointing out that only 33% homes that have access to television versus the 54% that have mobile phones,as per data of the Census report. “If one compares urban plus rural,television had 32% penetration in 2001 which has grown and is at 47% at the moment. But mobile has grown from 9% in 2001 to 56% today. Mobile today is 24% larger in Indian households,especially rural where the number is about 50% more,” he said. Murthy added that if one were to look at the numbers further,television has about 111 million viewers whereas mobile has about 133 million users – which consists of 400 million users of SMS,900 million SIM cards,etc. Taking a swipe at daily newspaper The Times of India,Murthy quipped,”When one compares the publication numbers of The Times of India which is 3-4 million,it is dwarfed by the 18 million users of Facebook every day in India.” Murthy said that while he maintained that print and television are not going zero,they certainly are losing their relevance. Says Murthy,”Where do you see yourself in the future—in five years from now,will you be seeking a job in a company that does not do digital?” As per Murthy,one would be hard pressed to reach a chief executive today unless it is on his tablet,iPad or mail. That’s the power of the medium,he stressed.

Big becomes bigger in print

Das Sharma of BCCL maintained that with the advent of the digital medium,there was proliferation of choice and therefore anything big becomes bigger. The growth of social media has fueled the growth of television and print and the investment in content is getting stronger. There’s been no shortage of doomsday theories,as per him. In the ‘50s,it was felt that radio will kill print. Print had been around for 450 years then. In the ‘70s,it was said that television will kill print. Rock band Queen also came up with songs on that such as the Buggles ‘Video killed the radio star’. Many years hence and we are still waiting for that to happen,he pointed out.

“A recent study done by a research firm points out that there are roles that different screens play in our lives. The mobile screen is a lover,the computer screen is a sage while the tablet is a wizard. But you need all three: a lover,a wizard and a sage.” he said. Das Sharma added that it would be very myopic if we were to assume that television is linked to a cathode ray tube,or that a newspaper is linked to a piece of paper. “I’d like to say here that 2012 saw some of the biggest gains in stock prices of print companies because of one aspect – they had figured out their business model” he said.

Sharma of IBM asked what would be the definition of “relevance”. In her view,it should not be a choice between “advertising dollars” vis-a-vis actual “return on investment (RoI)”. Ad dollars are about expenses while business relevance is about business outcomes and about what the CEO measures,particularly the RoI. In today’s world,relevance means business impact. “To quote numbers from a CEO study that was conducted,the use of social (media) went up from 11% to 48%,and the use of web increased from 37% to 49% as the primary way to interact with the customers. That for me is business impact. What most brands such as Coca-Cola,Pepsi,ICICI,HDFC,etc.,have in common is their innate belief that this medium is relevant and their investment in this medium is not just what the ad agency says it is,” she said. She added that in terms of RoI,one can measure digital better than print and television. “Therefore,the future for marketing where RoI is seen as a primary measure for success has got to be digital,” she said.

Television piggybacks on digital

Sanjay Gupta,COO,Star India began with the premise that when he began his career 20 years ago,there was talk that print was going to die. Yet print is about R14,000 crore from the R6,500 crore ad revenues it was a decade ago. For television,the growth has been from R5,000 crore to R16,000 crore. “I would like to say that consumers love television and it is thriving. Around 700 million people in this country spend three hours every day watching TV. When they start,it is for two hours,which then picks up to three hours. Also in the last one year,70 million new people have started watching television. That’s more than the number of people who watch digital in any given point in a month. The same is the case in developed countries such as the UK and the US where the time spent is around 4-5 hours every day.”

Gupta added that Hindi film Dabaang was watched by 150 million people,while television serial Balika Vadhu aggregates about 40-50 million viewers in that half an hour. “People fall in love with our characters,” he said.

Gupta,however,concedes that everything is going digital and that digitisation is changing the way television companies do business. “Till now only 20% of the revenues from digital medium came to the broadcaster but the transparency with direct-to-home (DTH) television is that this number is moving to 100%. So subscription revenues of TV companies have grown five times and it give us the power to invest in content. That is what will make it (television) even more relevant in the future.” he said. Social media also adds impetus to content,points out Gupta.

“To quote an example,our show Satyamev Jayate was the biggest show we did and we used social media to make people come and watch it. It was in fact the highest trending topic on Twitter. So what I am saying is that digital is driving our business to do better.”

Mahesh Murthy was quick to interject during Gupta’s discourse and asked if his point was that television was increasingly going digital in content,or using digital deliveries to make an impact. Gupta’s answer was digital was growing,but it was also making other mediums bigger. Therefore print and television were not declining,but were far bigger than what they were. “The point I am making is that the medium is powerful,profitable and is growing. The fact is that people will not consume any one or two mediums,they will consume all the mediums. The question is: How do we use the power of each of these mediums as they have to be relevant. So print and TV will not lose their relevance,they will continue to grow. The real question is that we need content aggregators and devices. Digital as a medium is just an aggregator of content. Fundamentally,the question we need to answer is how meaningful can this content get on the medium if it has to grow even further,” stressed Gupta.

The session also saw some heated discussions on whether agencies were getting kickbacks (undeclared commissons) from newspaper groups and broadcasters,which led them to put money in mainstream media. Towards the end of the debate,the lines between what the two parties were blurring rapidly. The shades of grey were summed up aptly by Sharma of IBM who said in her closing remarks,”I think the four of us together have made a very compelling case for the growing relevance of digital and that it is powerful,profitable and here to stay. Such a combination would make this medium indeed relevant. Print and TV is going digital,decision-makers are going digital,politicians are going digital…. The big question is,which side do you want to sit on?”

Sam Balsara,chairman and managing director of Madison World,who was in the audience,said that no one was disputing the fact that the digital as a medium was growing,but is it growing at the cost of print and television? Virginia argued back that if the medium was indeed growing,the share would have to come from somewhere.