Strategic relationship between advertising clutter and polychronic time use: a study of Indian youth.

• Author: Kansal, Purva

INTRODUCTION

Globalization is integrating not just trade, investment and financial markets. It is also integrating consumer markets. As companies understand this their motivation to hop on to the globalization bandwagon is increasing. As a result, there is fierce competition to sell to consumers worldwide. Therefore, companies are looking high and low for strategies which would help them deal with this increased competitive rivalry and also help them generate interest among consumers. In the past, companies have accomplished this objective, by promoting their product a shade better than the competitor.

Among companies, aggressive advertising was and is a popular method of informing a large number of people about their products. According to Kotler etal (2006), Meta etal (1997), Vakratsas and Ambler (1999), Kirmani, (1990), Jefkins and Yadin, (2000), Dhalla, (1978), Abraham and Lodish, (1990) and Krugman, (1965), advertising is preferred by the companies because it helps build consumer acceptance, corporate image, consumer loyalty, increased sales though its quality of pervasiveness, amplified expressiveness and impersonality. This multidimensional personality of adver tising motivates companies to spend huge amounts on their advertising campaigns.

Therefore, advertising expenditures across the globe are growing rapidly. According to an estimate by Worldwatch Institute global advertising expenditures hit record in 2005, jumping 2.4 % to $570 billion (Worldwatch 2006). United States has the largest advertising expenditure in the world--at $167.8 billion for 2004, up 6% from 2002--in 2004. Europe showed an increase of 4.7% from its 2002 rate, with total expenditures of $93.3 billion. The asia-pacific region showed an increase of 7.3% from 2002, to a level of $74.8 billion in spending on ads.(Amn 2005). This growth in advertising expenditure trend is expected to continue. ZenithOptemiedia in a report published in early part of 2006 predicts a growth of 5.3% in 2007 and 5.6% in 2008 in advertising expenditure (ZenithOptemedia 2006).

These figures help us understand that advertising expenditure is expected to grow in the future. However, effective advertising is a complex process and requires efficient use of media. Companies use a combination of mass media to communicate their message to large concentration of people. An analysis of international advertising expenditure, media wise, shows that Newspapers 29.9% of total share of expenditure in 2004, down from 30.6% in 2002; magazines share was 13.5% in 2004, down from 13.9% in 2002 (Worldwatch 2006). While that of vehicles in broadcast media i.e. Radio advertisements spending has declined, to 8.8% in 2004, from 9.0% in 2002 and Television advertisements accounted for 37.5% of total world advertisement spending in 2004, up from 37.1% two years earlier(Worldwatch 2006). Therefore, televisions popularity as a mass media, as compared to print media, is increasing. As a result the scope of this study is limited to television as a medium of advertising.

TELEVISION ADVERTISING

In twentieth century, with introduction of the broadcast media and the internet, advertisers started to explore alternative marketing and communication strategies. However, despite threats of audience fragmentation and advertisement avoidance, big category advertisers have stayed loyal to this media.

This loyalty stems from the belief that television is the most powerful advertising medium to reach a broad spectrum of consumers. Advertisers agree that television, as a communication medium, drives it power from the fact that it allows them a synergistic use of imagery and brand intangibles (Kotler etal 2006, p.474). It also allows marketers to effectively demonstrate the product attributes and explain their benefits. Convinced of this advertisers spend billions of dollars each year on television commercials and campaigns. Therefore, thesedays Television stations allow commercials to be screened in groups called "pods" not only between two different shows, but also in a show at regular intervals. This method of screening commercials in a show and in-between shows was intended to capture or grab the attention of the audience, keeping the viewers focused on the television show so that they will not want to change the channel; instead, they will (hopefully) watch the commercials while waiting for the next segment of the show.

In the 1960s, a typical hour-long American show would have 51 minutes of programming time and 9 minutes of commercial. However, a similar program, today would only be 42 minutes long (Wikipedia Encyclopedia 2006); with a typical 30-minute block of time including 8-10 minutes of advertising time. Which is divided into regular advertising pods containing commercials of 15-20 second (Gaebler Ventures, retrieved 2006).

This increase in number of advertising pods meant more advertising alternatives for advertisers. Popularly the choice among these alternatives is made on basis of cost per thousand of audience size. Larger is the audience size of a channel or a program more is the demand and incentives to advertise on that alternative. In a bid to reach a larger audience size and influence their product recall, old advertisers increase the frequency of advertisements (Knight 2004) while more companies join the bandwagon of television advertising. An indicator of this trend is a high ratio of advertising expenditure to GDP across the Globe. In US this ratio of advertising expendi ture to GDP stands at 1.3% followed by at UK 1% (Mukherjee and Chandorkar 2005). For Germany ratio stands at 0.8%, in South Korea it is 0.8% and in Japan it is 1%. A similar trend is seen in majority of developing economies as well. For example in Latin America the ratio is 1.2%, Brazil is at 0.8%, China at 1%.In India advertising expenditure stands at 0.4% of the GDP (Mukherjee and Chandorkar 2005). According to global standards this ratio India is at the lower end of the international scale yet television advertising is considered as one of the most powerful media's of reaching the urban as well as rural population.

INDIAN TELEVISION ADVERTISING SCENARIO

Historically, television entered in India in the early seventies; when there was only one public service broadcaster i.e. Doordarshan. This channel till 1980s used to broadcast for few hours everyday. Today this industry has come a long way with more than 350 channels being broadcasted 24 hours a day (Krishanan 2003). With only 60% penetration (Shashidhar 2005), India has over 119 million television households watching these 350 channels. With an average householdsize of 4-5, advertisers cannot afford to loose the opportunity to reach over 500 million eyeballs (IBEF 2006). Therefore, in India as compared to other media's, television advertising expenditure has been increasing. As compared to other media's, the television advertising is a US$ 1,067 million industry (Mukherjee and Chandorkar 2005). This adspend accounts for about 41% of the total adspend in the country.

However, when compared to both developed and developing countries like China (45%) and Latin America (55%) (Mukherjee and Chandorkar 2005), Indian television advertising industry can be termed as a growing industry. According to Indian Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) Indian television advertising industry is estimated to grow by 12-14 per cent in 2007 and thereafter by 14 per cent per annum compounded annually, over the next five years. (IBEF 2006). At present, there are about 30,000 commercial spots on television every day. About 45,000 advertisements are aired daily and 55% non-programming time is dedicated to advertisements. For english movie channels, the figure is 70% (Financial Express 2006).

With an increase in the number of television commercials there is an increased competition between program content and advertising pods referred to as clutter. Increased advertising clutter has led to changes in the consumer viewing habits. As a result, companies questioning the efficiency of this medium of communication, in terms of reducing the competitive rivalry and creating a brand impression. Moreover, companies have started to question, the long term, wisdom in choosing the media on basis of cost per thousand of audience size or circulation rather than on basis target market. This study was undertaken to explore these issues. Though there is "Sparing research" (Brown and Rothschild 1993) on clutter, there are even fewer studies on perceived results of increased clutter visible in viewers in form of nomadic activities.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

This section elaborates on the two concepts used in the study i.e. advertising clutter and polychronic time use.

ADVERTISING CLUTTER

These days, multinationals and domestic firms alike are involved in expensive and elaborate advertising campaigns to deal with their competitors and increase their visibility. Furthermore, frequency of advertisements influences the product recall (Martin etal 2002). Synergistic impact of these two reasons has led to a steady increase in the number of advertisements being aired. This level of advertising, in a medium, is referred to as "Advertising Clutter" (Brown and Rothschild 1993; Johnson and Cobb-Walgren 1994; Elliot and Speck 1998).

In the past studies clutter...