Even as the television medium’s share in India’s total advertising spend has dropped from 42 per cent to 34 per cent between 2020 and 2022, large brands are still investing most of their ad dollars in the medium because it offers better ROI compared to digital media, said Sam Balsara, Chairman, Madison World, at the e4m TV First conference.

Balsara was delivering the keynote address at e4m’s flagship evente4m TV Firstheld in Mumbai on Wednesday.

The adman pointed out that even asTV’s share in the total AdEx globally has come down to 18 per cent, in India it’s still at 34 per cent thanks to large brands who continue to rely on TV as a medium due to the inherent benefits it offers.

Deliberating on why large advertisers in India still spend huge AdEx on TV,Sam Balsarahighlighted three main reasons: TV is more efficient and effective, TV campaigns draw attention and their impact lingers on for a long time.”

Sharing global studies, Balsara said: “Contrary to perceptions, TV media’s CPM reduces with an increase in the target audience as the medium offers huge “spillover audience” “for free”, Balsara underscored, adding that the spillover audience sometimes goes to more than two-fold of the target audience.“Spillover audience is very critical for brands because even for highly penetrated brands like Colgate only 9 per cent buyers buy the products five times or more. Growth headroom for the brand is 59 per cent non-users,” the ad stalwart said, citing a Byron Sharp study.

Referring to another study on Parag Milkfoods, he pointed out how the brand witnessed 38 per cent sales growth in traditional channels while modern channels offered a mere 15 per cent growth year on year.

Sharing a study by media researcher Prof Karen Nelson Field, Balsara said TV delivers the highest attention, 13.8 sec for a 30-sec ad. In contrast, YouTube, Instagram and FB infeed offer 5.2 sec, 1.7 sec and 1.6 sec, respectively. Mobile ad attention was at the lowest of 1.2 second, as per the study, Balsara cited.

According to Balsara, TV is critical in “Attention Economy” and its ability to drive attention at scale.

Balsara also shared that TV’s share inAdExhas come down because marketers, CFOs and CEOs all are having a shorter stay in their jobs these days. Additionally, neither promoters nor their PE investors have any idea about brand building or strengthening brand equity over time for sustainable profits.