Life without IRS
By Nikhil Rangnekar With the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) demanding withdrawal of the new Indian Readership Survey (IRS) findings, the dark clouds that were looming over the Indian TV industry have now engulfed even the Print industry. While publishers do not want the new IRS data to be used and have come out strongly against it, other stakeholders are still non-committal and seem to have adopted a wait-and-watch stand. These would include media agencies who use the data to plan and buy space and advertisers who advertise in the Print medium. What therefore could the next few months have in store for the industry? Here’s a funny take on buying and selling of print space in the absence of IRS data and why agencies might be happy with the total blackout of data on both TV and Print. SCENE I MEETING BETWEEN A SALES EXECUTIVE (SE) OF MONY TV AND A MEDIA PLANNER (MP) FROM GROUP X This is how the conversation goes: SE: Hi! I have come to pitch for business for our publication in your plan. You might not know we are the Number 1 publication in the country today. MP: What? How? When? Forget the new IRS, even in the old one, you were at number 21… SE: That’s history, my friend. We have our own readership survey that I am referring to, and according to it, we are leading across the country. We conduct this research in and around our offices among people of all age groups and SECs. We are clearly the Number 1 publication. You will be amazed to know that even the Bhelpuriwala below our office serves bhel only in old copies of Purani Duniya, that’s how popular our newspaper is. MP: Research in your own office? SE: Oh, this is nothing. The other day we got a gift from one of our clients congratulating us on becoming the Number 1 newspaper in the country. Even the gift was wrapped in a copy of Purani Duniya. MP: Look man, I have wasted enough time with you. I am not going to accept your idiotic research. I read only Dainik Vyakran and I will include that in my plan. If I read a particular newspaper, then even my audience must be reading the same paper. I know my client also reads Dainik Vyakran. (End of meeting) SCENE II MEETING OF PLAN PRESENTATION TO THE MARKETING MANAGER (MM) BY THE MEDIA DIRECTOR (MD) MS: MM, now that we are in agreement on the overall construct of the plan, I think we need to create some buzz in our key market through ‘On-ground activation’. MM: MS, you know we can’t afford any activationshactivation. Print advertising is a lot cheaper and it has given us the desired results in the past. Why do we need to spend more money on activation? MS: Oh Sir! 360o is the in thing these days. Our audience is on the move. Activation will excite them. They are always looking for something new, especially if it comes free to them. It will also help us win awards in some forum or the other. MM: So you want to win awards at my cost irrespective of whether a particular activity is needed or not? MS: No Sir, you misunderstand me. Just listen to this proposal we have got from OGeraldO. They are expanding into our key market and have launched 15 editions. They are going to do 75 road shows across the State and they want us to be the main sponsor. In each road show, they will contact 500 people especially the ones who cannot read and enroll them in a literacy camp. Once they learn how to read they will get three years’ free subscription of the paper. They will also create a database of all these people and we can do direct marketing to them. Also this database will help us get a more realistic picture of their readership going forward. MM: But that’s not our audience MD, we are selling cars. MS: But think of the number of people we will reach. Last time when they did this kind of a roadshow, they reached 73 people directly. So many leads they could generate. And also look at the CSR opportunity. The publication will give us 5000 sq cms of editorial space to promote this activity as a CSR. Your picture will be on the front page of all the editions. You will be a super star, Sir. The publication has promised us all the support we need for this campaign. MM: MS, neither do I want to be a superstar nor do I want to lose my job. So let’s stick to a normal plan this time round. (End of meeting) SCENE III MEETING BETWEEN THE INDIA CEO OF GROUP X AND THE GLOBAL VP VP: So how are the numbers looking like this year, CEO? Are we on target? Is our AVB business growing? CEO: Oh yes, VP! We are on a roll. This data blackout has been a boon in disguise. We are making a killing in the market. Our toplines have grown by only 10% in this quarter but our bottomline has seen 100% growth. I think you should hand over my bonus cheque right now… (laughs) VP: Wow, that’s amazing news! First tell me how have you managed this? Your margin will be the highest in the world. I need to congratulate you for this achievement but please tell me the secret of your success. CEO: Well, the first thing I did was to downsize the planning team by half. See, no data means no new plans. We have created plan templates for different combinations of audiences, markets, objectives and budgets. When we get a brief from a client, we key in these details into our software (which is nothing but an excel macro, but looks fancy) and voila!!! Out comes a fresh plan. We just have to tweak these plans to match our AVB deals and the plan is ready. We have saved all these manhours on planning and cost of planners which has given a big boost to our margins. Be it Print or TV, we deliver a plan in 10 minutes. VP: Hey, that’s smart thinking man! What about our AVB business? Any smart ideas there? CEO: Well, that’s really the killer… 70% of our margin growth is coming only from AVBs. See, now there is absolutely no accountability. Whether a channel has any viewership, if a publication is being read or not, it doesn’t matter anymore. We make sure that media owners who give us the maximum AVB are in the plan. Channels like Private TV give us 20% AVB, so I have hiked the business we give them from Rs 75 lakh last year to Rs 5 crore just in the first quarter. Since there is no data, nobody can question their channel share and GRP delivery. VP: Excellent!!! And what about the larger networks and publishing houses where our AVB percentages are low? CEO: Well, their share in our media plans is also low now ha ha ha VP: This is great news, man. You will get your bonus cheque soon. Cheers to more data blackouts across the world… (End of meeting) (The writer is the Joint CEO of Spatial Access Media Solutions)
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