Slowdown cuts down ad-spend

In the backdrop of the current economic downturn, increasingly more and more multinationals and Indian companies are spending lower on advertisements or marketing activity as a measure to cut down on expenditure. Rajkumar Jha, national creative director, Ogilvy Action pointed out, “Increasingly we are seeing a trend that more and more multinationals and Indian companies are opting for low budget ad-spends. Advertisement budgets have gone down by 50-60 per cent compared to the last fiscal.

“This is a very peculiar phenomenon because just when some companies were making a headway with proper branding and products it makes no sense to cut down on ad-spends and compromising on visibility,”pointed out Jha. Different companies are opting for different measures to fight the crisis, but cutting down on ad-spends or ad-budget, or cutting prices as a knee-jerk reaction to the crisis is not a feasible measure in the long run, said Sharad Sarin, professor of marketing and general management area, XLRI Jamshedpur on the sidelines of an interactive seminar on marketing strategies organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce.