Indiantelevision dot com's Media, Advertising & Marketing Watch :CAS or no CAS - media planners will suffer more post 15 July

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indiantelevision.com's Media, Advertising & Marketing Watch

CAS or no CAS - media planners will be challenged post 15 July

The Indiantelevision.com Team

(3 July 2003 2:00 pm)

MUMBAI: The uncertainty over the conditional access system (CAS) has compounded the problem; added to the woes of the advertising and media fraternity. The fragmentation of the consumer market will definitely cause headaches and heartaches to planners and buyers.

The Advertising Meltdown - A CASe for Conflict, India's First ever CAS Summit on the TV advertising scenario post CAS organised by indiantelevision.com will attempt to unravel some of the mysteries. The half day summit will be held on 4 July at the Hyatt Regency Mumbai.

There is a feeling that media planners and buyers have had it easy till now - notwithstanding the extremely complicated and fragmented nature of the market. Distribution hasn't played much of role as yet in media planning. However, CAS has highlighted that distribution has always been a significant, yet ignored, facet of media planning and buying. "The media planning function ought to have moved out of the computer screens to the cable control rooms long back," says a veteran media planner who is critical of planners who stare at computer screens all day.

Post 15 July 2003, there will be several jigsaw puzzles even as Indian television homes will be fragmented beyond recognition - the NCS (India surveyed market); the all homes market; the cable and satellite homes market, the socio-cultural regions (SCRs); the CAS homes in metros (Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata) that have invested in set top boxes, the post-CAS FTA homes in metros that don't invest in set top boxes. Confusion will be the name of the game.

Lodestar media director Arpita Menon sums up the situation in her foreword in the latest issue of the agency's inhouse news magazine The Compass: "Never before has the cable and satellite connectivity assumed so much importance than in the era of CAS. Planners have stopped (at least temporarily) agonising over what people watch and have started wondering about whether they can watch at all! Never before have channels and cablewallahs been more at loggerheads than right now. The consumer is the obvious sufferer in the battle and of course, the advertisers too."

While speaking to indiantelevision.com, ETC Networks director Jagjit Singh Kohli says: "Advertising and media business will get creatively integrated in the post CAS scenario due to ample opportunities for branding. The ability to develop and deliver messages in a certain context gives an advantage to advertisers and offers challenges to ad agencies. The opportunities will include options such as EPG (electronic programme guide) and OSD (on screen display) that will become a part and parcel of every household that owns/invests in a set top box (STB).

WPP Media MindShare Team's report titled "Conditional Access implication to marketing" points out the following facts that prevail at present:

1. Current TAM panel represents only 38 per cent of C&S homes.
2. Four metros represent 35 per cent of total reporting.
3. 62 per cent of Hindi sat GRP contribution is from Mumbai. Kolkata, Delhi. Exaggerated impact will appear in media reports (eg Kyunki TRPs fall by 40 per cent) if these channels remain pay.
4. By the time CAS gets launched, contribution of three metros to Hindi Sat GRPs will reduce from 62 to 40 per cent due to TAM expansion.
5. Connectivity of pay channels in Kolkata will be lower than Mumbai/Delhi.
6. It will not affect Chennai due to Sun TV being FTA.

The MindShare report also states: "The MSO today is caught in a vice between the media owner who is demanding more disclosure of cable subscriptions and the last mile cable operator (LMO) who will not declare all subscribers. The biggest beneficiary of CAS is the MSO."

Newly formed multi system operator (MSO) Broadband Pacenet India CEO S Ravindran adds: "Further complications will occur due to the impending arrival of MPEG 4 - that provides object level rather than frame level (MPEG 2) that is currently available. MPEG 2 involves merely compression techniques whereas MPEG 4 is more advanced. Advertisers will get a chance to blend interactivity with content. Ad agencies will have to develop creative content that is more focussed."

Kohli adds that rating agencies and media agencies will have to eventually coordinate with MSOs for research findings and consumer insights. He emphasised that MSOs have started thinking seriously about data collation and mining - even looking at these as revenue generators. Cable operators too, he feels, will be an important source of information as they have a direct connection with the consumers.

This complex scenario visualised above would be applicable to the four metros. But there is a market that goes beyond the metros. While presenting Madison Media's Town and Country tool at Emvies 2003, media planner S Nagaraj claimed that mass media planning and buying doesn't necessarily ensure exposure in certain socio-cultural regions (SCRs). SCRs are areas (small towns) that are intermediate - not necessarily totally urban or totally rural. "Conventional techniques ignore disparities with any particular state," he stated.

Madison Media proved that people residing in SCRs should be tapped by examining awareness, accessibility and affordability. Using the tool, the Madison team defined four clusters - Media Dark, Regional C&S and press; Regional channels plus press; Hindi C&S plus cinema. The Madison team proved that Star Plus reach in SCR regions is lesser than Zee and Sony. Morever cinema channels such as MAX and Zee Cinema and niche vernacular channels score in these areas.

Lodestar's Menon seconds this view by saying: "The markets need to be more accurately represented than ever before. The assessment of a channel is not complete without taking into account its connectivity in the target market. In this scenario, OTS Update comes in as the voice of reason, monitoring channelwise connectivity across 300 one lakh (100,000) plus towns. Unlike the NRS which asks a consumer about the channels that are received in the house, OTS Update collects the data through frequency tuners in controls rooms of cable networks - month after month!"

Developed by Media Reach and promoted by Mumbai based Update Marketing, OTS tracks channel availability in all the 300 one lakh plus towns in India. TAM, even with extended coverage, only provides data for 73 markets with a lot of data clubbed for reporting purposes.

A Study by Starcom Worldwide and Hansa Research Group that was released in June claimed that 80 per cent viewers said that the will wait for CAS to settle before buying an STB. The study also said that the consumer is aware of CAS, he is also quite apprehensive of how it is going to affect his life. In hindsight, with the current confusion and the fate of CAS in balance, it looks as if the consumer has proved to be savvier than most marketers would imagine.

There is no escape from the fact that media independents and ad agencies will have to create specialised teams that will deal with the post-CAS scenario.