Print in 2022: Vernacular advertising, spends by new-age brands to help recover from Covid

“Even Facebook still advertises in newspapers,” points out Mohit Jain, BCCL board member and recently appointed president of Indian Newspaper Society.

“Of course there’s a big shift towards digital and other media, but print still carries the most impact. Reading newspapers is still a habit for a majority of people,” says Jain.

While digital media has certainly thrived over the last two years since the coronavirus pandemic gripped the world , it’s been an especially challenging year for print, with issues ranging from massive drops in ad revenue to supply chain difficulties, including newsprint shortage and its subsequent price rise. The shortage of domestic newsprint was compounded by the rupee’s performance against the dollar since publications had to purchase it from abroad.

However, the recent surge in Covid cases notwithstanding, print is seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. Ad revenues and prospects are picking up, especially driven by 2021’s festive season, and there is interest from a slew of new brand categories which realise that print still has a broad bandwidth across demographics and geographies.

Rajeev Beotra, Executive Director - Revenue, Advertising & Distribution at the HT Media Group, shares that there has been a significant uptick in industry volume growth to pre-Covid levels.

“And it has been a good revenue quarter for the industry, with advertising volumes exceeding pre-Covid levels, as noted by TAM data. TAM Media Research’s report noted that the print industry has already recovered 82% of the pre-Covid levels and posted an 18% drop in ad volumes in 2021, as opposed to 2019. In terms of pricing, there has been a 90-95% correction in 2021,” explains Beotra.

“In addition to the traditionally large verticals like auto, we also expect to see an impetus from new-age businesses like e-commerce & D2C which are growing very rapidly,” he observes, adding that vernacular is also playing an increasingly important role.

“Language advertising, especially in the Hindi belt, has seen a strong recovery and continues to drive growth. New-age businesses like e-comm are looking to further strengthen their position and penetrate these markets and gain audience attention. The print business continues to remain relevant as it is still a significant reach vehicle, especially in states like UP, Bihar and Jharkhand,” he says.

M V Shreyams Kumar, Managing Director, Mathrubhumi Group, too is very optimistic about the new year.

“2022 will provide business owners with various new opportunities as markets finally open up and there will be those who will go back to where it all ended, and there will be more of those who would have gathered the strength and ability to view avenues/opportunities and developments from a new angle,” he shares.

“We certainly belong to the latter, and for our business partners (mainly advertisers) who also belong to the latter group, our new practice will remain embarking together on a consumer connect journey like never before and also staying accountable for our actions.”

And this customer-oriented approach runs across the industry, as Beotra says, “Customer centricity remains the front and center of everything we deliver on. Through the One HT Sales organization, we have always remained sharply focussed on delivering and measuring what matters for the advertiser's brand and sales objectives. The One HT Sales organization draws expertise from our print, digital, and radio SMEs to provide platform-agnostic solutions for our clients. In 2022, we are looking to invest heavily in new formats of content delivery, like our widely subscribed newsletters across genres.”

Beotra concludes, “The print industry is seeing a slow but steady recovery in the pricing of inventory especially for premium positions, leading us to remain cautiously optimistic on the trajectory of the business. We will continue to watch the on-ground situation caused by the new strain of Covid-19 and hope that situation remains controlled and manageable.”

Jain too asserts, “Though we still haven’t reached pre-pandemic levels, we should be able to do it this year.”