As the political landscape intensifies with election fever, there’s a visible surge in political advertisements both online and on traditional media platforms. However, the messaging seems to follow a new pattern, blending political communication with an entertainment factor. And all of this comes at a cost. Media planners anticipate a substantial 35-40 percent surge in ad spends across digital, television, print, radio, and out-of-home (OOH) platforms during the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, compared to the 2019 elections.
Media planners are forecasting a wildly broad spectrum of political ad expenditures on mass media (newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the internet), ranging from Rs 2000 crore to Rs 13000 crore.And yet, they all say these are conservative estimates.
It’s important to note that this range encompasses paid media channels only.
“The estimates floating around are the accountable expenses on marketing and advertising. While Meta and Google and other bigger platforms publish ad transparency reports, there is no accountability on informal channels, spends on social media influencers and smaller media outlets. Election AdEx also includes spendings on OOH (out of home) which is not just the hoardings we see in cities but also the innumerable ones in smaller and rural markers, the posters on auto rickshaws and the innumerable cutouts and standees spread across the country,” said a media buyer who did not wish to be named.
While there is no accurate measurement of spends, media buyers seem to agree on one factor. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be the top spender in the upcoming elections when it comes to advertising.
Their ads are professionally curated and disseminated.
An illustrative example is a recent ad featuring actor Vaani Kapoor for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The ad talks about the benefits of the Narendra Modi government and touches upon a host of schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, the Ayushman Bharat mission and others.
The party has reportedly also called for a media pitch.
Ogilvy, McCann, Crayons, Cosmos, Efficacy, many more vying for the BJP campaign account.
Other than the heavyweight contenders Cosmos Maya, Crayons, Moving Pixels, Vishista VFX and Thought Blurb Communications are also in the fray for the party’s business.
Over 50 percent of the total AdEx will go to digital medium, said experts.
As per the Meta Ad Library Report, between January 11, 2024 and February 9, 2024,BJP has spent a total of Rs 1.5 crore. Of this, Rs 1.18 crore was spent in the last week alone. The spending on Google ads is even more; according to the Google Ads Transparency centre, political ad spends in the last 30 days stood at Rs 24.5 crore, with the BJP taking the lead by investing Rs 12.4 crore.
The disclosed numbers on Meta and Google are significantly higher than expenditures on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. What is being spent in a month now was the total spend of almost one quarter back in 2019.
Between February 2019 and May 2019, Google and Facebook reported a combined political ad expenditure of approximately Rs 58 crore. Google disclosed 12,276 political ads amounting to Rs. 29.3 crore in four months, while Facebook’s India Ad Library declared a total of 132,419 ads valued at Rs 29.28 crore.
As per a recent dentsu report, the Indian advertising industry grew by 8.6 percent in 2023 and is expected to grow by 9 percent to reach Rs 1,01,591 crore by the end of 2024. This upward trajectory is attributed to key events this year which includes the elections.
In 2023, government advertising spends have grown by 62.2 percent over 2022, said the report.
At the release of a report on India’s AdEx, Prasanth Kumar, CEO, GroupM South Asia said, “Despite facing macroeconomic challenges, we remain optimistic about the industry. At 10.2 percent India will be the fastest growing top market. 2024 will also see an upside from the spends leading to the General Elections. Digital, particularly retail media and digital extensions of TV are expected to drive the growth.”