Ad spending to grow 9.6% in 2015

Lower than overall rate of last year's but like-to-like comparison shows estimate this year to be higher

One of the largest media agency groups in the country, Madison World, owned by adman Sam Balsara, issued its annual advertising outlook for 2015 on Friday. This Pitch-Madison forecast is that growth will moderate to 9.6 per cent as against 16.4 per cent last year.

Madison says total advertising expenditure will be Rs 40,658 crore as against Rs 37,104 crore last year, an increase of Rs 3,554 crore in absolute terms as against Rs 5,227 crore in 2014.

Interestingly, GroupM, arch-rival of Madison, which released its ad forecast for the year ahead of the latter, says total advertising will touch Rs 48,976 crore in 2015, growth of 12.6 per cent over 2014. This would be marginally ahead of last year's growth figure of 12.5 per cent estimated by GroupM, implying no drop.

GroupM also says television advertising will grow 16 per cent, print at five per cent and digital at 37 per cent in 2015.

Balsara, chairman and managing director of Madison, however said if elections and e-commerce were taken out of the 16.4 per cent growth figure of 2014, the residual figure of 5.6 per cent would be a more like-to-like comparison with this year's forecast. "Almost two-thirds of advertising growth seen in 2014 was on account of elections, both general and state, and e-commerce. Take this out and what you are seeing is growth from existing categories, which is 5.6 per cent. This is a like-to-like comparison," he said.

While e-commerce and state elections will be contributing factors to growth this year as well, Balsara says the big highlights of 2015 will be the ongoing Cricket World Cup, which will contribute just under Rs 1,000 crore in ad revenues, launch of new TV channels, geo-targeting of ads which will attract small advertisers at the local and regional levels, increased government spending in print and launch of radio's phase-III expansion.

Specifically, print will continue to lead ad expenditure in 2015 with a total share of 41.2 per cent, followed by TV at 38.2 per cent, digital at 10.7 per cent, outdoor at six per cent, radio at 3.5 per cent and cinema at 0.5 per cent, according to Balsara.

GroupM's forecast, in contrast, had pegged TV's share at 46 per cent, print at 34 per cent, digital at 9.5 per cent, outdoor at 5.27 per cent, radio at 4.09 per cent and cinema at 0.83 per cent.