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Fear of Net cannibalising ad revenues haunts TV

The emergence of the Internet as a potent advertising medium over the last couple of years has been terrifying those in publishing and television. Ostensibly, because there is a feeling that the net will cannibalise ad revenues.

For those in print, the fear is perceptible because over the last couple of years, television has managed to wean advertising audiences effectively. Latest research, though that has emerged from the US where the Internet is far more evolved that in any other country, however, reveals an altogether different picture. That by 2003, the decline in ad spend will be minimal. At best, about five per cent from television and nine per cent from print.

The numbers were discussed at a seminar on Internet advertising and marketing organised by the Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communications (SIMC) by a panel of experts. The way things are now though, 53 per cent of advertisers are spending lesser on either television or print to pump funds into the Internet.

The argument that advertising revenues will not decline in either of the media, experts at the symposium said, was on the back of ‘synchronicity.’ They defined it as the linkage of online and offline messages to move people along the buying cycle.

Bluntly put, advertising numbers in the future will be the sum of whatever appears in various media — both online and offline. To that extent, they said that ad spend will not decline substantially and that each medium will increasingly complement each other.

A case in point being websites being advertised in both print and television. Neeraj Roy, CEO of Hungama.com demonstrated how brands like 7 Up and Levis had used television to draw audiences to their sites with devastatingly good results.