India's most-watched ads: Maximum eyeballs

Did you see the ad on TV?” The marketing guy in the crowd misses a heartbeat as he perks up his ears to catch your conversation. Bingo! It’s his product.

As TV viewers, we absorb those short clips in different ways — sometimes falling for a lovestruck Vidya Balan or Aamir Khan as an irritated Sikh. For marketers, however, what you watch, how long and when, are existential questions. And there’s a way to measure it: Gross Rating Points (GRPs), the sum of all ratings for all programmes in a schedule, by one definition. Marketers invest huge sums of money and time in making us take the first step—see the ad. Whether we, as consumers, will take the next step—buy the product—is another matter.

Sure, there are many debates around the creativity of an ad, but we, at Business Today, present a ranking of the ‘Most-watched Ads’ based on the GRPs (April 2008-May 2009). The attempt is not to tell you that these were the most creative ads or that these were the most effective ones. These were the most-watched ads across all cable and satellite homes (C&S) by viewers upwards of four-year olds—oh, yes, they wield a huge influence. This way, we rule out arguments of different and unique target groups (TGs) of consumers and the confusion arising from considering only a certain geographic, psychographic and demographic universe. Also, the duration of the ad has been normalised to a common time (30 seconds). This will be followed by a monthly update of the most-watched ads in the alternate issues of Business Today.

But what’s a list without a healthy debate! For all its apparent simplicity, GRP is a complex issue that creates deep rifts among media planners and advertisers alike. Some scorn it, some swear by it. But they are the people who are busy searching for the ‘Holy Grail’ in marketing in attempting to nail effectiveness, efficiency, return on investments (ROI) and everything else in between.

GrrrRP Talk
Says Shashank Srivastava, Chief General Manager, Maruti Suzuki: “GRP is a good, simple measure. But like with all metrics of measurement, there are many qualifiers to it.” Indeed, none of his brand finds any mention in our most-watched ad list. There is an explanation: “Auto as a category is loaded in favour of print; only 32 per cent of our spends are for TV,” he says. But his own GRP analysis reveals an efficient spend: “Out of the total 85,000 GRPs between April 2008 and March 2009, we had 22 per cent GRPs with spends of 17 per cent on TV, while our competitor Hyundai had 29 per cent GRP with spends of 25 per cent. It shows there can be an intelligent way of planning and spending on GRPs,” he says.

Many media experts believe that while GRPs are an indicator of intensity of exposures, as a stand-alone number, it does not indicate anything. “It has to be looked at in conjunction with the overall clutter within a genre/channel/time slot and competitive pressures,” offers N.P. Sathyamurthy, President & COO, Lintas Media Group.

Mona Jain, India Head (Strategic Investments), India Media Exchange, points out that most brands on the ‘Most-watched list’ fall in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) category, which targets mainly women, who are seen as intensive viewers. “The TRPs (television rating points) are highest amongst them— but that does not mean that these brands have the highest recall,” says Jain.

In fact, there are many dynamics at play that account for the absence of high spenders such as cola brands, durables and even the much-discussed Zoozoo campaign from Vodafone, among others in the list. According to Jain, these categories often apportion nearly half their spends to print. The high-decibel Zoozoos was launched only in April this year and may take time to accumulate GRPs, whereas this list represents GRP accumulation over a year.

Most agree that GRP is a good entry point to the debate, but it is not the “only” point determining an outcome. For instance, Lizol 3-in-1 (11,68,200 seconds) with almost the same duration as Lifebuoy Total (11,26,020) delivers lower GRPs by 20 per cent. This could be the result of a different media plan where one has probably placed money on niche, frequency channels, while the other has chosen to spend on an FMCG plan, which is a mix of all day parts on the channels that offer a high GRP on relatively lower investments.

Yet, Fact is…
The GRP argument shifts depending on who one is speaking to. For instance, it changes when a client is talking business with a channel: “GRP is a surrogate for the money we invest. To calculate our return on investments, we certainly look at GRPs and the cost per rating point (CPRP). We look at various brand health scores to evaluate our communication and media partners. But the efficiency of a TV channel is driven by its ability to deliver the GRP for which we have invested the money,” says Chandrasekar Radhakrishnan, Head (Brand & Media), Bharti Airtel.

This is validated by R. Gowthaman, Leader, Mindshare (South Asia): “Most of the clients make their investment decisions based on GRPs or competitive GRPs.”

That’s the reason why most channels first try to build a genre and then attempt to cut through it. For instance, a kids channel will eventually try and offer TRPs that match general entertainment channels (GECs): “But most marketers, who are on TV, in my understanding, are investing in reach. It follows naturally that reach platforms (GECs) would be the first on the shopping list. Niche channels are typically used to add frequency and/or association with genres and audiences that have a brand fit (MTV as a youth platform, for e.g),” says Rajesh Kamat, CEO, Colors.

So, is GRP a good metric to judge a channel? “For salience, yes. For impact, sometimes yes and sometimes no. GRP is the currency in which we buy and sell, so it is the obvious currency in which we’re measured as well. But it is by no means a measure of advertising effectiveness. Media effectiveness, at best, yes,” he says.