TV is a medium for reach, digital for performance: Nagraj Krishnamurthy

There is a lot of conversation happening on digital media surpassing the TV medium, however, TV is still considered a premium medium due to the credibility and the history attached to it. According to Nagraj Krishnamurthy, Chief Strategy & Analytics Officer, Madison Media, TV as a medium is used for better reach and building a brand whereas digital media is still seen as a performance medium.

At Pitch Madison Advertising Report 2023, Krishnamurthy spoke about how the digital video world and the TV world are colliding and what brands should do in order to use them to their advantage by planning a full-funnel plan.

Regarding digital penetration, Krishnamurthy said, “Ever since the launch of Jio, digital has grown significantly. Today it has the largest share of ad-ex. For the first time in our history, we are dominating the world. According to the Nokia data, we are the world's largest data consumers. We have beaten advanced economies like the UK, and South Korea and by 2026, we will have one of the highest penetration.”

He went on to explain that India has the world’s largest video-consuming population with people having an average screen time of three hours consuming video in various forms such as reels, web series, films, etc. However, TV viewership is declining as the ‘light viewers’ are mostly consuming content on digital mediums rather than on TV. Krishnamurthy explained, “Reach has been consistent, people have not moved away from the TV but the time spent has come down. In this age of digital and TV, one needs to use digital if one wants to balance out the deliveries to heavy viewers and light viewers. In the TV world, it is very easy to reach out to heavy views.”

Krishnamurthy advised brands to have a robust way to allocate monies between TV and digital as they have come up with media consumption intensity to understand the viewership pattern and cater better to the advertisers. One of the key takes from this was viewers above 50 years of age, use only one medium while gen-z uses more than 3 mediums to consume video content. With this insight, Krishnamurthy advises brands to reach audiences strategically by having an integrated approach and using their money wisely.

An advantage of TV Krishnamurthy notices is TV gives us a spillover audience because TV is a broadcast media with the highest amount of co-viewing so even if one is targeting women, the men also tend to watch the advertisements without having an option of skipping it. The other advantages or key benefits of TV Krishnamurthy says that TV has evolved over a period of time, digital has started as a performance media, it didn't start off as a brand-building media.”

He also said that on TV 100% of the screen is taken by advertisements whereas in digital 50-60% of the screen is taken by advertising. He said that advertisers should also consider that people may skip ads, so even though the video might have gotten views in lacs the actual value is in how many people have watched the full video.  He also spoke about the frequency of messages, while in TV it is easier to get it registered in peoples’ minds, but in the digital world, the frequency needs to be higher.