iWorld
TikTok tops ad equity charts for second year: Kantar
Mumbai: Data, insights and consulting company Kantar on Thursday released its report titled Media Reactions 2021, the second edition of Kantar’s global ad equity ranking of media channels and media brands. Ad equity refers to the attitudes consumers have towards the advertising experience within specific platforms and ad formats.
Across branded digital platforms, TikTok remains top of the global ad equity rankings. Although leading the highest spot as overall platform in only one market – Taiwan, TikTok is the leading global digital platform in the important US market and is first or second-ranked of the global digital platforms in 9 of the 22 markets where it was measured.
The inclusion of commerce platforms in this year’s ranking illustrates their increasing importance across the digital advertising landscape. Amazon ranks second globally among consumers, topping the list in 4 markets. Together with regional e-commerce giant Mercado Libre, which leads in Argentina, Amazon’s success showcases why e-commerce has entered the online media channel ad equity rankings in third place.
Despite the prominence of digital platforms in daily life, consumers continue to be more positive about offline ad platforms such as cinema, sponsored events, magazine ads, and point of sale (POS). The popularity of podcast adverts has risen. Positioned at #11 in the overall ad equity ranking, they have overtaken influencer content as the preferred digital ad medium. Podcast ads are perceived as both better quality and more relevant compared to 2020, but also more repetitive, unsurprising given the increase in ad spend on the platform.
Global vs Local: The report highlights the importance and challenge of market-specific media strategies. In 16 of the 23 markets surveyed the top-ranked media brand was a local media brand or a localised version of global media brands. The 10 of these 16 are news and magazine brands. This local success, together with differing attitudes to the ads on global digital media brands, makes balancing the benefits of scale of global media platforms with the promise of greater relevance from local media gems ever more important.
The Innovator’s Dilemma: The report also underlines the challenge for brands in keeping their media mix reflective of the latest consumer media preferences as well as reflective of their own values and brand positioning. Marketers favour channels and platforms they believe provide both trustworthy and innovative advertising environments. Among the global brands, Instagram best manages this balancing act. YouTube, Google and Facebook are trusted platforms but are considered slightly less innovative.
TikTok is not yet trusted by marketers as much as the more established platforms, but it has made enormous improvements in the past year. It remains comfortably the most innovative place for ads, and trust has doubled, so many more marketers are now positive about placing ads on the platform.
Ad Spend Outlook: The report marketers’ survey provides insights into probable media growth areas for 2022. The vast majority of global marketers plan to increase spend on their favoured ad formats: online video, influencer content and social media ads. Many will reduce spend on print ads. YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are the platforms set to benefit most.
Discussing the findings, Duncan Southgate commented: “The ad industry has been encouraged by the rapid recovery in 2021, as advertising has been used as one of the levers to fuel recovery in the wider economy. As we emerge into a new media landscape, brands need to understand which consumer and marketer attitudes have changed, and which have stayed the same. Which media brands have retained their appeal, and which have grown stronger? While the pandemic accelerated the growth of digital in every aspect of life, we have seen robustness in consumers’ preference for offline advertising, and some strong local news brands in particular.”
“Marketers need to ensure their strategies respect those preferences alongside the benefits of scale delivered by global digital platforms. TikTok has done an impressive job retaining its differentiated advertising proposition with consumers – even as its user base has almost doubled over the past year. We have also seen the re-emergence of retail as a critical ad platform, both online and physically. Advertising strategies that seamlessly align with omnichannel retail strategies provide a great opportunity for marketers to deliver more popular campaigns.”
Kantar, head of media- South Asia, insights division, Sandeep Ranade added, “Moving into 2022, we will see consumers adopting more and more digital channels and it will impact advertiser’s appetite for digital connection opportunities. Consumers do not differentiate between the way media is bought and hence it will no longer be offline vs online but a balance of reach vs receptivity and global vs local media partners to bridge the gap between what consumers prefer vs what advertisers perceive consumers prefer. We have also seen that Indian consumers generally have more pronounced views on advertising compared to the global audience”
Gaming
India’s broadcasters say no to Fifa World Cup 2026
Fifa has slashed its asking price by 65 per cent but India’s broadcasters are still not buying
MUMBAI: The world’s biggest sporting event cannot find a single taker in the world’s most sports-mad nation. Fifa’s television rights for the 2026 World Cup remain unsold in India, and the clock is ticking loudly.
To shift the property, world football’s governing body has already swallowed hard and cut its asking price from $100m to $35m, bundling in the 2030 edition as a sweetener. It has not worked. Indian broadcasters have looked at the offer, done the sums and quietly walked away.
The reasons are brutally simple. The 2026 tournament, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, kicks off in a time zone that turns India’s primetime into a graveyard shift. Most matches will air between midnight and 7am IST, a scheduling catastrophe for advertisers chasing mass reach. The 2022 Qatar edition was a gift by comparison, with matches dropping neatly into Indian evenings. North America offers no such luxury.
The market itself has also changed beyond recognition. The merger of Star India and Viacom18 into JioStar has gutted the competitive tension that once sent sports rights prices soaring. Where rival bidders once slugged it out, there is now a single dominant buyer, and it is in no hurry. JioStar has valued the rights at roughly $25m, a full $10m below Fifa’s already-discounted floor price. That gap has so far proved unbridgeable.
Broadcasters are also nursing a ferocious cricket hangover. Between 2022 and 2023, Indian media houses committed well over $10bn to cricket rights alone, covering IPL, ICC events and BCCI domestic fixtures combined. After a binge of that scale, appetite for a football package that delivers a fraction of the ratings, in the dead of night, is close to zero.
The economics of football broadcasting make the maths even harder. Cricket, with its natural breaks every few overs, is an advertiser’s paradise. Football offers a 15-minute halftime and precious little else. Recovering a nine-figure rights fee from a single half-hour ad window is a stretch at the best of times. These are not the best of times: the Indian government’s tightening grip on real-money gaming and gambling advertising has vaporised a category that once underwrote the economics of big sporting events.
Nor is the World Cup an anomaly. Indian Super League valuations have cratered. English Premier League rights have softened across successive cycles. The cooling of football as a broadcast commodity in India is structural, not cyclical.
With the tournament opening on 11th June, Fifa is running out of road. It may yet blink and meet JioStar at $25m. Or it may go direct, streaming the entire tournament on its own platform, Fifa+, or cutting a digital deal with YouTube, and hoping that a generation of Indian football fans finds its way there without a broadcaster to guide them.
Either way, the beautiful game’s Indian chapter is looking decidedly ugly.
