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| KINGS OF COMMERCIALS |
New Delhi, April 20: Cola, soap and shampoo may be ruling television commercial charts, but the new kids on the block are ? hold your breath ? nappies.
Advertisement spending on baby care products is growing faster than that on any other kind of consumer goods ? though, in absolute terms, they do not bring in as much money as, for instance, food and drink commercials.
In newspapers and magazines, the ad spend on these products grew by 165 per cent between 2004 and 2005 ? the highest among all groups in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) segment surveyed by AdEx India, a division of TAM Media Research.
It’s the same story on television ? a rise of 70 per cent, again the highest among consumer goods advertisements.
In comparison, the food and beverage category, which includes moneybags like the cola companies, grew only 38 per cent on television. Hair care ad spending grew 25 per cent, personal care/hygiene rose 26 per cent and there was only a nine per cent increase in detergent ads.
Baby care is nowhere, though, if one considers its share of the total ad spend ? and not the growth rate ? on television or in print.
In the AdEx India survey, baby care is lumped under “others”, a category accounting for no more than two per cent of the total FMCG ad space on television. Food and beverages is the most advertised category, commanding a 30 per cent share of FMCG television ads. Hair care accounts for 14 per cent.
As a whole, the FMCG segment brings in good money for television channels: nearly 60 per cent of all TV ads were for FMCG products in 2005. In the print media, though, the entire segment contributed just 12 per cent of the overall ad spending.
On television, a clutch of 10 big companies ? such as Hindustan Lever and Colgate-Palmolive ? account for as much as 43 per cent of the entire FMCG ad spending. In the print media, the spending was spread thinner in 2005.
Consumer goods manufacturers mostly went to the bigger television channels with their ads. Over 80 per cent of FMCG ads were in the so-called national channels. Among the regional channels, the highest share, about 11 per cent of the total, went to south Indian channels.
