Mobile's big moment: Popular gaming apps among top advertisers in India

Size of this category will grow as traditional spenders remain cautious amid slowdown

One of the country’s top three advertisers in 2019 wasn’t a retail major or a consumer goods company as has been the trend over the years. It was, instead, a popular gaming app.

Dream11, a fantasy sports player, broke into the top three of domestic advertisers in 2019, according to the latest Pitch Madison Adex report. This was also the first time a mobile gaming application had figured on the list.

Dream11’s ad budget was Rs 800 crore versus Amazon’s Rs 900 crore, said the report. The latter is the second-largest advertiser in India for 2019, while Hindustan Unilever remains the largest with an ad budget of Rs 3,200 crore.

The marginal difference in ad spends between the second and third-largest advertisers, say experts, points to an interesting trend. One is the emergence of new categories in advertising. The second is these companies are willing to spend big bucks to make their presence felt.

In the case of fantasy sports, the market is only growing, pushing new players to step in. Last week, Twitter-backed ShareChat became the latest entrant in fantasy sports with Jeet11. Besides these, some other players in the category include MyTeam11, Fantain, and Starpick.

And while some experts point to the thin line of difference between fantasy gaming and sports betting, the former continues to get bigger in size.

A report by KPMG and the Indian Federation of Sports Gaming says the user base of fantasy gaming platforms has crossed 70-80 million in India and will only expand as big tournaments such as the Indian Premier League (IPL) in cricket and the Indian Super League in football continue to grab eyeballs and viewer interest.

From an advertising context, this will mean that the category size (of fantasy sports) will increase. According to Sam Balsara, chairman and managing director of Madison World, “Today there is one player from fantasy sports in the top ten list of advertisers, tomorrow there could be more. Digital is throwing up new advertisers as consumption and entertainment habits change.”

At a time when traditional spenders such as retail, telecom, automotive and even fast-moving consumer goods remain cautious with their advertising budgets given the consumption slowdown, agency heads say it is this new league of advertisers that will make the big difference in the future.

“In 2020, India faces challenges and uncertainties across sectors just like other markets. However, this also brings opportunities for brands including new-age advertisers to innovate. This trend will be propelled by greater use of technology and content,” says Prashanth Kumar, chief executive officer, GroupM South Asia.

GroupM, for instance, says categories such as audio and video-streaming services will see a faster evolution in India with hybrid models, including advertising and subscription-led feeds, driving growth.  The result will be a fight for content and viewership, GroupM says, pushing streaming services to advertise even more.

Tarun Katial, chief executive officer, Zee5, says the streaming service has lined up over 80 original shows for the current calendar year and will invest behind new initiatives such as gamification of popular characters and launch of a new short-format video platform by April.

Hotstar, on the other hand, will focus on the Disney+ launch as well as the IPL13 that will begin on the same day (March 29). The streaming service will target small and large companies with special packages and will also advertise its services aggressively on television, print, digital, and outdoor, media planners say.