In a bid to shore up its advertising revenues and mop up new clients, the Rs 840 crore Indian radio industry is aggressively marketing the classified advertising format. The newest player to join the bandwagon is Big 92.7 FM of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG). It is promoting its its classified advertising format on radio through a new vertical called Big Impact.
Says Tarun Katial, CEO, Reliance Media World, "With changing media trends, classified advertisers are looking at effective ways to ensure reach and response while also being cost effective. Big Impact, in evaluating this business opportunity is ushering classified advertising on radio, in India."
Classified advertisers are mostly small businesses who seek quick and timely results, says Katial. "We will host 10-second advertising spots, with clear messaging, between 12 noon and 6 pm. And we will ensure assistance through end-to-end logistics."
According to the media and entertainment industry report of 2009 by Ficci and KPMG, between 2006-2008, the sector grew by 19.7%. The report sayys the radio industry's ad revenues will grow by 14.2% between 2009-13.
Currently, the most popular form of radio ads is the regular spots which a station airs during the commercial breaks between programmes. Another form is utilizing sponsors, for example, for time checks and traffic updates. And finally, there is also customisation as per specific requirements such as integrating celebrity shows, song tags, etc., to a programme.
Big FM has launched this service in Mumbai and will follow it up in other cities suit shortly. Big Impact is primarily targeting advertisers in information technology, education, property and travel sectors. "Metros will have an advantage, but non-metros also have good potential as retail and small and medium enterprises are showing robust growth," says Katial.
"Advertisers today are much evolved and they have their own diagnostics to measure and understand the value an advertising medium offers them. We are confident that this value product will deliver to take the advertising requirements of the small and medium advertisers to an altogether new level. Radio offers high reach and is extremely cost effective, which promises to work excellently for their businesses," he adds.
In India, classifieds for the print industry account for 15% of the overall print revenue. And with the print industry size pegged at Rs 10,000 crore, the classified ads market is around Rs 1,500 crore. With comparable figures for the radio industry is not available, experts say it indicates that the scope for growth is immense.
Concurs Prashant Panday, CEO, Radio Mirchi, "Classified advertising has a tremendous scope on radio. It allows small topical advertisers to experiment with radio using classifieds. It's a very interesting format."
Radio Mirchi, owned by Entertainment Network India Ltd, has been doing classifieds for the last 8 years since it launched its first radio station. "We have had literally thousands of clients converted using classifieds. Almost all of the smaller Mirchi stations use classifieds as a format to rope in smaller advertisers," he says.
As of now, classifieds may not contribute much in terms of percentage of revenues, but it's an extremely important stepping stone to bigger spends on radio, explains Panday. "We have called it by different names in different markets-the most common one has been simply Mirchi Classifieds. We also use Mirchi Express in some markets."
Radio City, promoted by Music Broadcast Pvt. Ltd, has taken the format of classified ads a step further creating contextual content around the classifieds. Says Apurva Purohit, CEO, Radio City, "We run classified ads which ensures the communication happens in an environment where the consumer is most receptive to it. Retail classifieds would run in the city buzz section which talks about various shopping options in the city. It has worked well for us in our smaller cities, where the ticket size of an advertiser is smaller."
