Three Video Advertising opportunities that Brands in India need to consider

Ever since the implementation of 12-minute advertising limit on television channels, as mandated by the Telecom Regulation Authority of India (TRAI), the entire television advertising scene has gone topsy-turvy. The sour repercussions of which have heavily impacted both on an equal platform – broadcasters as well as the advertisers. Carriage costs haven’t slipped down an inch, so has the TV advertising tariff – given the massive digitization roll-out, and now the minimal ad content display on TV channels. All put together don’t quite translate into something very profitable for either side.

In the light of which, we dig this situation deeper to find out plausible solutions that brands here in India can look up to, and, as such, effectively utilise the available alternate resources (read: internet) to maintain grabbing eyeballs and keeping the reach as widespread in tandem with the earlier situation. We are obviously talking of a win-win situation for all.

On the whole, even if the Television industry maybe in a soup because of the recent TRAI move, the internet advertising industry seems to take the same move welcomingly. A few years ago, digital media experts wouldn’t have predicted the significance that digital media has today. More so, about the digital advertising! Though, it did have its fair share of mention then, but mostly constituted as a secondary or an add-on to print or television advertising. But now times have taken a different stride. Brands now increasingly prefer the digital media for showcasing their value addition to the masses. And why wouldn’t they? Statistics specify a majority of customer base hooked online for most of their times in a day.

Technology is seamlessly converging with human life today, opening many avenues of exposure right from the palm of one’s hand. Mobile devices are making it extremely feasible for advertisers and promoters to target niche set of relevant audiences without the baggage of huge expenses being loaded onto them. Changing oneself with the changing times has always been a profitable proposition, be it personally, collectively or even technologically. These changing guidelines, regulations and converging technologies call for newer ways of advertising.

1. Advertise With Online Video – The first and foremost alternative that stands tall effectively is online video. Video uploading and sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo and similar video mobile applications used on smart phones and tablets make it immensely easy to reach the right target audience. Without a doubt, video format is the most interactive and “connecting” medium of advertising. Banner ads are soon being replaced by mini-sized ad videos.

YouTube is known to dominate this online video scene the most. The pre-roll advertisements played on YouTube have statistically proven to have had a positive impact on sales or even brand awareness. When compared with TV, YouTube boasts of 90% reach amongst the metro youth when compared to a leading Indian entertainment channel. Given the fact that YouTube comes with a much lower cost-per-rating-point than any of the news, infotainment channels, it might not startle you to know that YouTube also only monetises 3% of the entire viewing time. Television does 20% monetisation.

2. Monetise Your Video Content – In fact, an extension to the above point would mean monetising your online video content itself. There are many ways of monetising your video on the internet. It’s similar to article marketing. Just that here your content is in the form of video. So you’d very well call it video content marketing. This could essentially prove worthwhile for broadcasters and content producers, who frequently generate information in the video format. Like article archive sites, these video archiving sites allow people to revisit and review events/ programmes time and again. Here, if the video content being displayed is live, the monetisation rates are high otherwise they are lesser. But, nevertheless, not insignificant!

Sites like Hungama.com or BigFlix.com or even BoxTV.com for that matter have a steady viewership as the statistics. Movie and video producers are particularly in a good position here to rake in the money from such sites that allow web users to view any movie or video on demand.

3. The Niche Called Mobile TV – The recent Idea ad campaign of “mobile internet for everyone” is enough proof of the extensive reach mobile internet today has in India. Mobile TV is the new go-to for the younger masses of the nation. Cause from the comfort of a click and your palm, anyone, anywhere can watch a video on demand. Statistics suggest the enormous leverage that mobile TV has and will eventually contribute to the advertisers.

Mobile TV platforms like Zenga TV and nexGTv speak of roughly 18 million monthly users with a staggering number of 225 million video views per month. These multi-platform players have a broad coverage of entertainment, news, music, movies, sports, spiritual, and cartoon, etc. channels, catering to widespread audience. These platforms support pre-roll video adverts and in-between banner ads formats, just like any normal online platform. To sum the pros of this sort of advertising, mobile TV promotions cost a minuscule fraction of what is charged on TV.

If anything, digital advertising only seems to be growing in leaps and bounds from here on. Like they say, early bird catches the worm. Make hay while it’s still less competitive and congested.

Arun Gupta

Last updated: October 4, 2024

Arun completed his post-graduation at FTII with motion picture photography as his specialization. With more than two decades of industry experience as a Cinematographer and as a Producer he has more than 300 projects like television commercials, television shows, Music videos, corporate films, Short films and documentaries to his credit.