Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Draining of talent poses a challenge to media planners, says Balsara

Special Correspondent

"Advertisers, markets becoming fiercely competitive"

Sam Balsara.— Photo: S. R. Raghunathan

CHENNAI: The mushrooming of television channels, newspapers and other media, growing expectations of advertisers and a draining of the talent pool were among the challenges that faced media planners and agencies, said Sam Balsara, chairman and managing director, Madison Communications.

"Now as many as 277 [television] channels are actively considered by agencies," he said, pointing to the growing clutter in the television field adding that it was a mere five in 1990. The total advertisement time had shot up from 51 million seconds in 2000 to 214 million seconds in 2004 while the average duration of an advertisement had gone down from 22 seconds to 16 seconds during the period.

With all this, Mr. Balsara said he was given to understand that India was still only 14th most cluttered nation in the number of channels available. He was making these remarks during a presentation on `Media Review 2005,' organised by the Advertising Club Madras and The Hindu.

The current Indian scenario presented opportunities for media professionals, who were "prepared" and were "open to change," he said. "The media market continues to be dynamic, with an accelerating pace of change in every way the media sells... . Markets are becoming more and more fiercely competitive, [and] media choices are growing exponentially," he explained.

The danger with clutter was that, at some point, advertisers would be forced to narrowcast. But this was "potentially more dangerous" in the hands of an inexperienced media planner. "The challenge before us is to develop a media insight relevant to the brands and categories that we handle," he said.

N. Murali, Joint Managing Director, The Hindu, handed over a memento to Mr. Balsara on the occasion. Minitha Saksena, president, Advertising Club Madras, welcomed.

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