Demand for digital content has led to a spurt in the increase of regional language contents
Dwijendra Kumar
Advertising is an integral part of publicising a product or service. A good advertisement creates a rippling effect on the prospective consumer, forcing him or her to use the product or service being advertised. But its role and contribution to the growth of a company are way beyond that. It not only stimulates demand but also provides them the satisfaction and pride of being a user of the product or service being advertised.
For any company, advertisement is a double-edged weapon. It does keep them ahead of the competitors, as consumers first recall their names while making a purchase. Growth in sales further leads to an increase in per-unit production of the goods. Growth in production then obviously leads to a reduction in per-unit production cost. Less the production cost, lower the price of the product. Lesser the price, more the demand!
Advertisement took its root in India around 1780. A newspaper, Bengal Gazette published advertisements for the first time of few important products. By 1920, Indian products from England and America had made inroads in the Indian market. They obviously needed to inform the consumers to boost their sales. As literacy then was low, outdoor advertisements were more popular. However, with the growth in literacy rate and improvement in quality of the printing technology, print advertisements too gained popularity. The Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) thus began functioning in 1945.
Since the liberalization of the economy, the quality of advertisements and advertisement campaigns has been soaring higher and higher. Advertisements have become more creative, their production quality has improved, and media planning is now being done very professionally.
No wonder then; these improvements in the quality of the advertisement campaigns are now helping the advertisers to gain much-needed publicity while launching a product or service. For a product that is already established in the market, these help sustain their image and boost their sales by tapping new, emerging markets.
According to estimates, the Indian advertising industry is now worth around one trillion rupees. It is growing at the rate of over 8 percent per year, with digital advertising leading over other modes of advertisement such as television and print. As digital content involves less production cost, people are using social media platforms in huge numbers, and mobile data is available to Indians at a very reasonable rate, with those from poor socioeconomic backgrounds also using it frequently. Digital advertising is poised for further growth, with online videos being the most preferred choice.
According to Dentsu India, the Indian subsidiary of one of the largest advertising and business promotion companies in the world, the Indian advertising industry has been worth over 90 thousand crores in 2023 and is poised for over one lakh ten thousand crores by 2025. The preferred choice for advertisers will be the digital media, whose share in their spending would be over 50 percent, followed by the television and print media.
Are alarm bells ringing for the print media, which relies heavily on advertisements to meet its production costs? No wonder then; all the leading newspapers and magazines have online editions and a full-fledged team of journalists and technical team working for it. These newspapers and magazines have also launched their YouTube channels to keep attracting the young readers who are accustomed to using online contents.
Demand for digital content has led to a spurt in the increase of regional language contents. Advertisers are also responding to it by releasing advertisements in the preferred languages of the potential customers. On YouTube, advertisers have begun to churn out contents in Marathi, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali, Telugu, and Tamil to reach out to the people in their mother tongue, and they are getting an overwhelming response.
(Dwijendra Kumar is a Mass Communication Professional who writes on fashion, lifestyle & communication. He has also authored books on fashion design & textiles. Views are personal)
