Print ad spends to see marginal rise this festive season: Naresh Gupta

The festive season sees advertising and marketing strategies of brands reaching a peak. While Digital tops the advertisers’ preference as a vehicle of reach and engagement, traditional media such as Television, Print, Outdoor and Radio also see traction.

While the world over, print has been seeing a steady slide in the last few years, in India, Print has continued to remain in brands’ consideration set. In recent times, we have seen Print media innovating to offer a hybrid coverage to brands, with the adoption of various innovations and QR codes.

In conversation with Adgully, Naresh Gupta, Co-Founder, Bang in the Middle, shares his observation on the traction garnered by Print media during the festive season this year, how Print can be relevant for the younger audience, experimentations and innovations seen in Print, and more.

Speaking on the print ad spends seen during this festive season, Gupta said, “I am expecting to see a marginal rise in print spends this festive season. There seems to be a slower build-up to the festivals this year, this should gain momentum now.”

Highlighting the print innovations being seen, he mentioned about the coffee flavoured print ad. Gupta added that the innovations in print are dependent on media houses on what they offer. He believed that there will be more such innovations in the times to come.

When it comes to Print media expanding their advertiser engagement, Gupta felt that what print needs to do is fight the impressions that the younger audience has given up on print and that print is expensive compared to digital. “Reach is a major advantage with print and they should build on that factor as much as they can,” he added.

While speaking on some experiments and interesting innovations seen on Print in recent times, Gupta mentioned about the coffee flavoured ad and the mixed reality ads. At the same time he said that he saw these as outlier innovations and not many brands doing it as a strategy. “For many brands, they will try to evaluate the trade off between investing in frequency vis-a-vis the impact,” he noted.

When asked whether he saw mixed reality technology as the future of print advertising, he said, “Print will look at expanding its offering by bundling options or services. There will be festivals, fares, etc., that the brands will leverage along with print ads to drive the audience engagement. The Times of India built itself with events and sponsorships, The Hindu has been terrific in their activities in Chennai. Almost all language newspapers are a part of social fabric in their city. These activities will deepen as print finds it mojo back.”

Also Read: Print ad space per publication in H1 2024 grew 5% compared to H1 2023