Digital Ad Decelerates for Publishers in South India

According to TAM, digital publishers in South India saw a downward trend for digital ad insertions in the April – July time, while all India trend showed a graph pointing north.

The average ad insertions per day for publishers in South India saw a steady decline over the April-July 2020 period. For all the India market, average ad insertions per day declined in May over April before seeing a nominal decline in July ad insertions shot up significantly.

However, things are expected to look up for the south’s digital publishers with the onset of the festival season. LV Krishnan, chief executive officer, TAM Media Research says, “Onam will bring in the much-needed cheer to business and economy in Kerala. During the COVID-19 lockdown months, the Ad revenues mainly came from essential goods, Edu-com, and financial categories. But since the past couple of weeks, there has been an increased interest by the auto, retail, and jewellery across the traditional and digital mediums.”

Krishnan adds that “Integrated marketing activities by both regional and national players are definitely positive signs for Kerala. The digital platforms will complement the TV, Radio, and Print media and help push the promotional activities planned by marketers. Marketers could take full advantage of leveraging creative campaigns in mass traditional platforms integrated with digital video content to lure consumer interest during the coming festive season.”

Life insurance was the top category with a 13 percent share of digital ad insertions among south web publishers in the months under review. The top 10 categories on digital had more than 50 percent share of total ad volumes. The education and finance sectors were on the list of top 10 categories. During July 2020 compared to April and May this year more than 30 categories and 1300+ brands advertised exclusively on digital.

With ICICI Prudential Life Insurance leading the pack the top 10 advertisers accounted for 35 percent of total digital ad insertions on south web publishing platforms. Also, with an 11 percent volume share, ICICI Pru I Protect Smart was the top brand, followed by Motilal Oswal (7 percent share), and Veenam Software (5 percent share).

In July 2020, the share of regional digital advertisers saw minuscule growth when compared to April 2020. The ratio of national to regional advertisers on south web publishers went from 82:18 in April 2020 to 81:19 in July 2020. Out of the top 10 regional categories on Digital, 4 were from the education sector and 3 were from the retail sector. The categories of the top 10 regional advertising accounted for more than 80 percent of total ad insertion volume.