Promax|BDA India 2008: Of intrusive advertisements and redefining entertainment packaging

The second day of the Promax|BDA India 2008 saw parallel sessions, where Lynn de Souza, Chairman and CEO Lintas Media Group took one set of the audience through advertising being an intrusion or a welcome form of communication. Some of the questions that de Souza posed were ‘Why do people avoid ads?’; ‘Is it because audience dislike advertisements that they avoid them?’. According to her, ad avoidance is at an all time high in India.

Referring to a survey conducted in 2004, she said that 70 per cent of ad avoidance came from cable and satellite television, which was the highest. What was worse was that it was the youth audience that avoided advertisements actively. de Souza observed, “Content is what attracts and drives the consumers, and the more you involve them, the more you make the audience feel that the programme is for them, thus attracting them.”

She noted that people came for content, and that the consumer’s state of mind at that time, depending on the show he or she was watching, would be the deciding factor on their reaction to the advertisement. She believed that this ambience also generated avoidance of ads. Disagreeing with TAM Media Research that a consumer was hooked to television and was watching an advertisement could only be an assumption, she continued that TAM didn’t measure whether a person was watching the ad when the television was on, or could’ve been in “another world” altogether.

Citing an example of Tata Sky, she said, “There is a perceived clutter, there are too many ads forcing people to be willing to pay high amount only to avoid ads on their television.” de Souza also agreed that people did not hate ads, in fact they loved them. However, most people do not relate to those ads. She also said that according to the survey, ad avoidance was much higher in rural India than in urban India, despite the fact that the target audiences were the rich farmers.

Summing up the entire session, she concluded that it was not that people hated ads, but a perceived clutter was the reason why people avoided ads, and the more the focus was on the content, the less the people would avoid ads. She concluded by saying, “Integration that engages is the way of the future.”

The second session at Promax|BDA India saw Chris Turner, Director, Brand Strategy, and Avijit Mitra of NDTV Imagine speak on ‘Redefining Entertainment Packaging’. The session opened with a brief on Imagine’s success by Turner, where Turner said, “The point of a brand is to make your target audience choose over everyone else.”

He also cleared the myth that a brand was all about logos, programming or graphics. He explained, “A brand is what your viewer thinks and feels about you when he sees you.” Speaking about the goals for Imagine in packaging, he said, “The idea was not to be different, but to gain the ratings. It was important to be familiar to come out with something familiar.”

On NDTV Imagine’s position, Avijit Mitra said, “There are a group of people having big dreams landing up in big cities to fulfil them, and as a new channel, we wanted to show that those people are also a part of the programme. We embrace modernity while cherishing traditions that are still important.”