For getting the media plans right, importance of understanding of overall media environment and your category cannot be over emphasized. If your brand doesn't belong to one of the Top 10 product categories, you can take some respite. Our analysis of advertising data revels that Top 10 product categories (out of 100 + categories) have as high as 40% share of all advertising. FMCGs occupy most of these slots. Also many categories have strong seasonality and your brand can do well to stay away during some heavy bursts. Afterall, your plan should be gunning for recall and not just GRPs.

Our analysis also reveals that during first seven months of the year (Jan - July 02), Star Plus has managed to deliver maximum cumulative viewership, across categories, while keeping a check on clutter. The numbers for AajTak look both good and bad!

Read this comprehensive exchange4media analysis on advertising trends thus far, this year.

Lets begin by looking at top product categories on basis of cumulative GPRs. No surprises really. FMCGs dominate television advertising completely. As many as eight product categories, from top 10, are typical FMCGs. See Chart 1 below.
Two wheelers, belonging to the classic durable category, is the only representative.

Chart 1: Top 10 categories - By GRP. Jan 02-July02

TOILET SOAPS	26882.32
TOOTH PASTES	22307.8
SOFT DRINK AERATED	19767.93
SHAMPOOS	19387.5
MOSQ REPELLENTS	19041.79
WASHING POWDERS/LIQUIDS	19000.75
HOSIERY	17553.11
HAIR OILS	15094.58
TWO WHEELERS	11025.47
TALCUM POWDERS	10577.4

TG: 15+ / CS HHs, Market: India Survey, Period: Jan- July 02
Source: TAM

Noteworthy is the dominance of these top categories on television. Our analysis reveals that close 40% of all advertising originates from only Top 10 categories! TAM classifies the universe into 100 + categories.

Chart 2: Top categories dominate Television advertising.
Share of total cumlative GRPs



TG : 15+ / CS HHs, Market: India Survey, Period- Jan- July 02
Source: TAM

Indeed. some product categories have strong seasonality, which perhaps reflects their consumption pattern. But the total air-time consumption, across categories doesn't vary significantly. It seems the seasonality of various categories almost cancels out itself. So the summertime sees an increased activity from cola majors but one notices a drop in categories like Ice cream and coffee. Refer chart 3.

Moving on an interesting insight. Star Plus has carried the advertising to maximum audiences but had the lowest clutter. A comparison with Sony suggests that Star Plus had twice the cumulative GRPs, across categories, but ran only half the advertising! This of course was by design, to give advertisers maximum value for money.
Chart 5 has more details.

From an advertisers perspective, AajTak, we noted earlier has good numbers and bad. Channels cumulative GRPs look good. Infact are ahead of several entertainment channels including Zee TV. But the channel is mired with too much clutter. In the month of July it had the highest number of ads running across all channels!

This ends the first part of the analysis. Next week we look the trends during August-December 01. That should give you some insights for the festive season coming up. So watch this space next week.