Scalability the only way to up brand visibility on traditional media: Rajiv Dubey, Dabur
At e4m’s 40 under 40 Journalism Conference, Rajiv Dubey, Head of Media at Dabur India explained that the company's traditional spends have stayed and still has the "first vote of call" when compared to digital. He said, “This is because in digital, a large chunk of the budget goes towards the performance side or the media part of digital. These two put together still don’t hold an impact as strong as television because even today, over 21 crore households are connected to TV.” Newspaper had a bad run in between due to Covid but has regained its reputation among advertisers. Therefore, it is the go-to opinion for premium advertisers, according to Rajiv Dubey. A format like the OOH sector was successfully able to recover to pre-pandemic numbers the fastest because it integrated its offering with digital and came up with DOOH. But how can other traditional media formats innovate to expand their revenue? Dubey thinks the toughest times are being seen by Radio since they have tough competition from online music streaming platforms and they need to innovate. But, outdoor offerings have improved a lot in terms of quality. In TV, the regionalisation and focus on local content of news channels is helping a lot already. Hence, monetisation comes in easily when the media format has some extra value to add for the advertiser. “The pie is going to eventually grow because when you have something new to offer to the audience, that is how new businesses emerge,” he added. But, traditional media lags behind when it comes to the measurability factor. Advertisers want to invest in a medium where they can understand what ROI they earned out of it. Dubey explained that TV does not really have the challenge of measurability but newspapers and outdoor can’t measure the ROI for marketers. The answer to all this is if the business grows, something is working right for the brand. For that matter, even digital is not fully measurable. Dubey said, “As of now a comprehensive measurement of different mediums is still not possible. The reports in digital come from the same media agency. Now, how much you can believe that is a question.” Calling CTV "Confused TV" instead of Connected TV, Dubey expanded on the scope of CTV advertising by stating that there are too many options available on one screen resulting in an attention battle for the viewer, which is a big red flag for any advertiser. He said, “There is the cable operator, plus some OTTs, and then there is streaming happening from OEM players. There is so much to watch that it is confusing for the viewer to decide where to put their attention.” Moreover, when it comes to each OTT, the viewership number is less than 10 million, he highlighted. The Dabur executive lives by the ‘100 crore rule’ for any marketing mix strategy which means to invest in any media, invest at least Rs 100 crore to see fruitful results. The only way to excel in the advertising strategy on any medium is by focusing a major chunk of the budget on it and waiting for the magic to happen. “Unless you do it at scale, you won’t get the brand visibility you are aiming for,” he concluded.
Tags : E4M 40 Under 40 Journalism Conference Rajiv Dubey Digital Measurement Connected Tv Roi Traditional Media