S-Group Insights: Even after drop in duration, Insurance-Life continues to dominate TV advertising

exchange4media.com and Strategy Group, the Analytical Arm of TAM Media Research, jointly bring  you a weekly column 'S-Group Insights' on Advertising Trends of different Product Categories. This column will be published every Tuesday and aims to aid advertisers, and media agencies understand changes in Media Consumption patterns leading to Scientific Advertising Investments. In the current column, we take a look at Clothing, Textile and Fashion as a category.

India has a diversified financial sector, which is undergoing rapid expansion. The sector comprises commercial banks, insurance companies, non-banking financial companies, co-operatives, pension funds, mutual funds and other smaller financial entities. According to IMF, the financial sector in India is predominantly a banking sector with commercial banks accounting for more than 60 per cent of the total assets held by the financial system.

Banking, Finance & Investment sector contributed to 1.2%,6.4% & 3.8% of advertising across TV, Print & Radio respectively in 2014. Among the product groups, Audited/unaudited financial reports including Balance sheets are exclusively advertised on Print medium while Banking-Retail Banking, Securities/ share broking Orgn & Banking-Services& Products have 81%, 80% & 63% of insertions on TV medium, respectively.

TV:

TV Medium witnessed 7321 hours of advertising per year from BF&I sector during 2010-14, though there is slight decline in volume of advertising in last couple of years owing to declining advertisement duration of product groups like Insurance-Life & Banking-Services & Products. Among insurance companies, Bajaj Allianz Life Ins Co Ltd & ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co Ltd while among banks, Axis Bank & Standard Chartered bank have reduced their advertising duration in Yr 2013 & Yr 2014. On the other hand, product groups Loan-Housing/construction & Mutual Funds have witnessed increase in advertisement duration in the same period. Indiabulls Housing Finance & State Bank of India in housing loans category while Birla Sunlife Asset Mgmt Co & UTI Asset Mgmt Co Pvt Ltd in Mutual Funds category have increased their advertising duration in Yr 2013 & Yr 2014.

Advertising on TV medium exhibits seasonality trend with Q1(Jan-March) of the year contributing to around 40% of ad volumes. This seasonality effect occurs mainly due to heavy advertising from the product groups like Insurance-Life, Banking-Retail Banking & Insurance Gen-Health/accidents in Q1. Possible reason for the trend of seasonality can be- Most of the corporates & individuals keep their policies aligned with the financial year(April to March). So, April is considered to be key month for Insurance sector in India.

Life Insurance Corp of India, which have  10.7% share in advertisement volume on TV in Yr 2014, is consistently among the top 2 advertiser over last 5 years while Birla Sunlife Asset Mgmt Co(4.0%) which was not advertising at all during Yr 2010-11 is among top 3 advertisers in Yr 2014. The company also witnessed increase in Total Income after it started advertising from Yr 2012.

National & Regional News channels (28% of total channel available) collectively contributes to 2/3rd of the Advertising duration from the sector while Hindi News Genre is the most preferred genre by advertisers, commanding the share of 16%. Also there is increasing trend of communicating message through regional language rather than English. South Regional languages have witnessed maximum gain in advertisement duration.

Number of channels used for Advertising has gone up from 246 in Yr 2010 to 364 in Yr 2014 while Regional News channels have seen maximum increase.

Print:

On Print medium, the sector has 6.4% share in total advertisement volume. Audited/unaudited financial reports including Balance sheets contributes to 61% advertising area on the medium which has induced heavy trend of seasonality with advertisement volume picking up every four months.

The category has witnessed 100.27 Mn. Sq. Cm. of advertising per year from BF&I sector but there is marginal drop in advertisement area over the years. SBI reduced its advertising area from 8.22 Mn. Sq. Cm. in Yr 2013 to 3.44 Mn. Sq. Cm. in Yr 2014. According to one study report, emerging digital media might be hitting advertisement by BF&I sector on Print medium.

State Bank of India with share of 5.6% & Life Insurance Corp of India with share of 4.3% are consistently top 2 advertisers over last 5 years. Financial Express & Business Standard are the most preferred publications over the years. Financial Express which had share of 18% in Yr 2010 has grown significantly over the years & have share of 29% in Yr 2014. On the other hand, Economic Times & Times of India are continuously losing their share. South Zone has the maximum share of 36% of advertisement area but North Zone has the highest advertisement per publication from the sector. Interestingly, among states Maharashtra tops with 18% of share while 6 Metros account for 53% of advertisement area in Yr 2014.

Radio:

On Radio platform, advertising of Banking, Finance & Investment sector witnesses seasonality trend with ad volumes significantly picking up in the month of March. Insurances-Life & General, Loans-Housing/construction, Mutual Funds are the top product groups advertising on the medium.  

 Life Insurance Corp of India(15.4%), SBI(7.8%) & Star Health & Allied Ins Co Ltd(6.5%) are the top 3 advertisers on the medium in Yr 2014. Use of radio platform is skewed towards 6 Metros as they contributes to 51% of advertisement duration out of 18 cities in which Radio stations are monitored.

In this highly competitive industry, it is interesting to see if advertisers on Television continue going regional to target the potential customers & how Print medium withstand growing impact of Digital medium.

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