BARC to launch premium rating system, Weighted Segmentation: Shashi Sinha

(Additional inputs by Vaishnavi Yadav)

In the dynamic world of marketing, confidence radiates from CMOs who, having navigated complex challenges, display a clear vision for the future. Delivering a special keynote address at the second edition of Adgully’s CMOs’ Charcha – Kolkata Chapter 2024 on June 14, Shashi Sinha, CEO, IPG Mediabrands India, highlighted the difficulties marketers face today, particularly with the proliferation and fragmentation of media and the evolving landscape of distribution, especially for CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) marketers.

Media Proliferation and Distribution Shifts

While stating that these are very tough time for marketers, particularly CMOs, Sinha attributed this to two broad trends. One is the field of media. “You find so much proliferation and fragmentation of media, with new media coming up,” he noted. According to Sinha, the other peeve of the marketers’ is distribution – the dramatic change there, especially in the CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) sector. This change is a result of kirana stores moving into hyper-local, the shift from large-format stores, and now quick commerce.

He further said that the classical model that media and markaters have practiced for a long time – Awareness, Consideration, Conversion – has gone for a toss. “The funnel doesn’t work in one way, but works across. Though awareness, conversation and conversion are happening, they are no longer linear, but all jumbled up. So, it’s really a tough time,” he added. The marketing funnel now operates in a more fragmented and simultaneous manner, making it challenging to determine what strategies work best.

To emphasise on how it has become really complex to figure out what works and what doesn’t, Sinha shared any analogy from the recent Lok Sabha elections. He shared, “The whole nation was hooked on to the elections, where there two large fronts – the NDA and the I.N.D.I.A. alliance. There was extensive use of paid media and social media, which made it difficult to gauge the effectiveness of various campaign elements.”  

“If you see, there was a broad trend – there were positive stories on what each party was promising and what each party will deliver, which were on the front of paid media; but on social media, there was some positivity, but there was a lot of negativity about what the other guys were doing wrong or will do wrong. And finally whatever the results, without doing value judgement on whether it was a win or loss, we saw the results and it was very difficult to measure,” he elaborated. Adding further, he said, “There can’t be an advertising campaign bigger than this – it was covering the whole nation, with over 90 crore voters and half of them voted. If any marketer or CMO looking at this were to take a call on what worked and what didn’t in the post-campaign evaluation, it would be very difficult to figure out, it would be next to impossible.”

Sinha observed, “I think all measurement techniques have gone for a toss, because you cannot see this interplay. And any campaign that the brand marketer works on will be far, far smaller than what we saw in the last 60-70 days – from March to end of May. So, the point I am trying to make is that life has become very tough, and you can only go by a conviction, that you build in a performance loop hoping this is what I will track, but the hypothesis that I put on the table – the time has come for not looking at the perfect solution or looking at perfect data, but move on and look in small measures and get on there.”

Navigating Media Fragmentation

Marketers must contend with a variety of media channels – from traditional mass media to digital and social platforms. Despite the rise of digital media and the importance of first-party data, Sinha emphasised that mass media remains crucial, particularly for CPG brands, which contribute significantly to advertising spend in India. The challenge lies in managing data privacy and collection issues, which complicate the effective use of digital marketing. “There are many, many roadblocks there. You have to take in a way authorisation for people to respond to you and there will be complications,” he cautioned.

At the same time, he genuinely believed that mass media is not going to go away, but is here to stay, especially for CPGs. “If you see, the backbone for mass media in this country have been the CPG players, which also includes the food brands. Almost 40-50% of the adex in this country comes from CPG,” he affirmed.

The Role of Intuition in Marketing

Given the rapidly changing media environment, Sinha advocated for a balance between data-driven decision-making and intuitive judgment. Marketers should adopt a performance loop approach, tracking small measures and adjusting strategies accordingly, rather than seeking perfect data or solutions.

Sinha’s summation was that CPG players, who constitute bulk of the spends in India, will continue using mass media. But they will have to learn better to live with (a) uncertainty – as many as marketing strategies or models that one does, it will be difficult to figure out what role the micro-influencers played or what role paid media played. Marketers will need to be intuitive; and (b) they will need some surrogate measures to see where they are going.

Innovations in Media Measurement

Veering away from the marketing world, Sinha, who also represents the TV rating body, provided a sneak peek into the steps that BARC India is planning to take to improve media measurement and targeting.

He shared, “I genuinely believe there is a huge potential in looking at segments and slicing and dicing the market – Unilever talks about winning in the many Indias, and they’ve been doing that successfully over the last 8-10 years. I think there is a great opportunity and we ourselves as partners to CMOs are working on what we could do to ensure that they get a better fix on what’s happening in the market. So, we are starting some initiatives, where if we are successful, hopefully by the end of the year we will get there somewhere.”

Weighted Segmentation: Introducing a weighted process to better segregate free and paid TV audiences, which will help marketers target specific segments more effectively. “For example, in TV data today we do Free + Pay, where it is not of much use because it is not segregated as it is not weighted. So, we hope to be ready with the weighting process, which will allow segregation,” Sinha said. He added that BARC was looking for a date to launch it because it wanted to do it at a time when there is minimum disturbance to the market – whether it is July or December – so that the season doesn’t get affected, because ratings are in a way currency.

He elaborated, “So, what we are going to do is have a weighted Free + Pay, where that Free and Pay data will give you, it is appropriate to say, Free audiences of a particular kind and Pay audiences of another kind, where there will be different processes for different segments. So, I think that will help you target better. Then we have a situation where once we do this successfully, maybe 3-6 months after that, we will break up Pay further into cable and DTH. Our initial track that we do, where we do the baseline which we do not put up but you have seen the data, shows that there is difference in consumption patterns, profile and demographics between cable homes and DTH homes. All this is ready, it’s just a matter of implementation because BARC is a secular body, so we take every stakeholder’s alignment and this is the next step that we are doing.”

Premium Channel Ratings: Sinha also revealed plans to launch a premium rating system by around September-October this year, wherein BARC will have 5,000 homes to start with. The premium rating system will capture media habits and viewing behaviour of premium households, including linear and connected TV consumption.

Sinha further said, “We are still working on the definition of ‘Premium’. Right now we are debating whether the premium panel should be on ISEC, because it is a large segment. The NCCS is very wide, so how do we ensure that there is a fine segment that is available. But advertisers and CMOs want it. Today, Goldman Sachs talks about 60 million homes which are premium, so can we capture them? If you see, the connected TV penetration is 35-40 million. So, there is an overlap between these homes. Can we capture their media habits and viewing behaviour? And once we are successful in launching a premium panel, suffice it to say that we will measure both linear and digital consumption. I am most excited about that because it has many aspects bundled into it – hopefully ISEC, CTV + Linear TV consumption. So, that’s a very big move that we are making.”

Cross-Platform Measurement: Sinha informed that BARC has been doing audience measurement for the last 6-7 years and has a 12,000 sample panel, where it measures TV and digital. BARC is also measuring what people are watching on their smartphones. “So, it’s a very broad measurement, because digital requires a huge base, and very interesting trends,” he said, adding, “I hope that the stakeholder body, which comprises BARC, at some point of time in the future decides to do cross-currency measurement – we are doing it, but it doesn’t allow us to put it out in the market and share some of this data – even if not as a currency, but as some nuggets and to share some broad guidelines. This is the first time that I have spoken about it, but this is a very early, topline trend which I have seen.”

Embracing Change and Optimism

Concluding his address, Sinha said that these are evolving times and underscored the importance of adaptability and intuition in marketing. As the media landscape continues to evolve, marketers must remain flexible, relying on broad trends and their instincts to guide their strategies. “I really love the optimism and enthusiasm of the younger marketers, as reflected in the confidence of CMOs, which will be key to navigating the complexities of modern marketing,” he said.

“I think the trick is to look for broad metrics for ratification, whether it is measurement or it is performance, but after that your intuition will work, because chances are that intuition works well and we look for broad trends. Don’t look for hard metrics or get into a paralysis analysis; in a dynamic world you need to be nimble,” he stressed.