Elections see a boom in the advertising and media sector, with the ads by various political parties producing a lot of revenue.
The media industry, among the first to see revenue dry up due to the economic slowdown, is expected to be one of the major beneficiaries of this election for which ad spend is pegged at around Rs 800 crore.
Experts say the total advertisement spending by the political parties would be around Rs 800 crore. The Congress and the BJP alone could spend over Rs 400 crore on ads on television, radio and newspapers.
The major political parties are spending a significant portion of their poll budget on advertisements.
"The media sector is going through a bad phase as even leading MNCs are cutting back on advertising. So the advertisement spending by political parties will definitely help the media sector," said Bhaskar Rao, chairman of Centre for Media Studies.
However, CEO of NDTV Media Raj Naik said a major chunk of the advertisement spending by the political parties is going to general entertainment and regional TV channels. "The news channels are not getting that much," he said.
Rao said most of the leading media houses have reported higher revenue generation in the fourth quarter of the previous financial year due to elections.
Rohit Gupta of Adwaves Advertising, a media buying agency, said media sector will be benefitted by the election as it would "infuse huge sums of money" into the industry.
Major political parties including the Congress and the BJP have already hired media buying agencies to buy slots in television channels so that the impact is maximum.
An official of Group-M owned Mindshare, the agency which is handling Congress' media planning and buying, refused to divulge the details of the party's total advertising expenditure but added that the amount is "significant".
Mindshare has booked slots for Congress' advertisement on major TV channels including news channels. "The advertisement spending will definitely help the media sector," the official wished not to be named said.
Rao said the total advertisement spending by the political parties will be around Rs 800 crore which is almost seven per cent of the total annual advertisement the media sector receives.
As per the estimates of CMS, about Rs 10,000 crore could be spent during the Lok Sabha elections, which includes about Rs 2,000 crore by the Election Commission and other government agencies and the remaining Rs 8,000 crore by the political parties and candidates for campaigning.
Realising the marketing potential during the mammoth election process, various private companies have also started websites appealing voters to exercise their franchise.
To seize the opportunity, major TV news channels including CNN-IBN and NDTV have set up dedicated websites to provide information related to the mammoth election.
Google has launched an official community, The Voice of Youth, on its social networking site Orkut.
This election has witnessed a massive online voter awareness programme as websites like Indian-Elections.com, IndiaNumbers.com, Jaagore.com, IndiaVoting.com are running campaigns to encourage voters to vote.
With nearly 10 crore voters below the age of 25, the election is a huge opportunity for the companies to connect with youths, Rao said.
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