MUMBAI: GroupM India, on Tuesday, announced their advertising expenditure (adex) forecasts for 2021. As per the GroupM futures report ‘This Year, Next Year’ (TYNY) 2021, India will see a major ad recovery in 2021 given the downfall of ad spends in 2020 due to the pandemic. TYNY forecasts India’s advertising investment to reach an estimated Rs. 80,123 crores this year.
This represents an estimated growth of 23.2%, for the calendar year 2021. Commenting on the TYNY 2021 report, Prasanth Kumar, CEO – GroupM South Asia, said, “2020 was an unprecedented year. The pandemic impacted across sectors, and it, therefore, affected the media investments too. The ad industry too had its challenges, and 2020 witnessed a steep drop in the overall media investments.
However, we have witnessed a month-on-month upturn in the industry starting Q3 last year, and we are quite optimistic about the revival that 2021 will see. Tushar Vyas, President – Growth and Transformation, GroupM South Asia said, “2021 will see 90% incremental ad spends on digital globally.
The massive switch to digital reliance over the past 1 year has been a major driver for this shift. The crisis has brought about a sea change in mindset, adoption, and role of technology in doing business. Brands are seen renewing their business models and are constantly ideating to find better ways to connect with the consumer on a digital tangent.” Ashwin Padmanabhan, President – Partnerships and Trading of GroupM India said, “Based on a strong foundation built on the back of FMCG and e-commerce, 2021 is expected to see growth across sectors like auto, telecom, consumer durable, retail, and education.
Sidharth Parashar, President – Investments and Pricing of GroupM India said, “Along with digital, television saw a spike in consumption during the lockdown. Hence along with continued relevance of television & other mass media, we will witness advertisers leveraging relevant platforms to reach out to its audience.”
GroupM also shared some of the top watchouts that will shape the Indian consumer & therefore, industry in the coming years. The trends presented were around consumer behaviour, sports, and e-sports, growth of OTT, connected commerce, the ecosystem of fragmented social media, digital transformation, innovations in audio, etc.
