Having lived through the boom years of television and now looking beyond, Shubhranshu Singh, Chief Marketing Officer, CBVU, Tata Motors, shared how TV advertising is evolving for brands at e4m’s TV First Conference.

Singh underlined, “There are several things that have happened because of television and are coming into play today. One has to dial the clock back to realise. The transitions are not going to happen in one quarter or one month, they will take four to five hundred years.”

A television is not an appliance, a television is central to the way in which India has organised itself. If we look back in time, in many ways, it became the centrepiece for organising thoughts, politics, art, culture, exposure. “Before the arrival of television, people were famous for what they had done, but after TV, people were famous for being on television. It has become the coinage for our times and it is a very powerful tool from a brand building point of view,” added Singh.

He said, “Furthermore, TV allowed brands and marketers, for the first time, a rate card regime in which they could buy appointment audiences and grab their attention. One can even create great traction for their brand on the genre of programming and the broadcasting time of the day, which wasn’t possible earlier.”

Every civilisation and every economy develop around some central theme, and India was organised around a television set until it lost its momentum to a mobile phone. Now, TV has to live up to that reality that Indians are organised around a mobile screen. Even though TV, as a media platform, has slipped to number three ranking worldwide, it still remains to be the largest media platform in India, he shared.

“If we have 20 crore households today and roughly 100 crore people who are within the catchment of TV, that penetration will grow about 80 percent by 2026. But where is the headroom? The headroom is going to be in rural. Digitisation or digital media is not as big a deal in rural areas and the content will become zipping across various screens, but television needs to find an intelligent way to stay in the heart of content dialogue,” he explained.

Television continues to be the biggest media platform because even today, the largest media spends are on TV. Digitisation is yet to permeate the rural markets and best of regional content is still on television, he opined.

Around 25 million Indian households owned a connected TV in 2022. This number went up to 32 million in 2023 and is expected to touch 45 million Indian households by 2025. The flexibility of medium, ease of search options and content variety is making Indians switch to CTV.

Moreover, India is planning to spend $395 million on CTV advertising by 2027. The surge in vernacular languages and the emergence of global video content coupled with the unique experience of the CTV home screen have collectively reshaped content consumption patterns across the nation.

And this is why, Singh believes, if convenience is driving audiences to CTV, addressability is driving advertisers to connected TV. “Advertisers are very opportunistic people. I too am, and if anything gives even a fraction of percentage more return, I will opt for it,” Singh said.

Through the incorporation of AI technology, televisions now provide automatic voice control, elevating user convenience and overall experience. The integration of AI assistance has transformed the way we interact with televisions, enhancing their intuitiveness and user-friendliness.

The future of TV is a combination of mass reach and personalisation. Singh highlighted that effectiveness is always a multiplier between the effort that it takes to reach that many more people and the personalisation that one can drive.

Singh further opines, India is a growth story on print, television, social media. In terms of sentiment analysis too, India is one of the most optimistic places in the world.

He doesn't think of India as a one-TV market now, it is almost a 10-12 distinct TV markets since there is increasing popularity of niche channels as they cater to specific interests.

Moreover, interactive TV will allow viewers to interact with the content and regional content will grow immensely. Ad-free subscriptions are becoming more and more affordable, Singh concluded.