Digital Entertainment Attracts the Biggest Ad-Spends

Photo by Julian Hochgesang on Unsplash

 

In a country where the median age group is 28.8 years[1], it is not surprising that most people turn to digital entertainment rather than traditional forms like television and movies. The widespread availability of mobile devices makes it easy, convenient, and inexpensive to access a myriad of OTT channels, social media networks, online gaming platforms, and music streaming services.

Businesses, marketers and brand managers know that digital ad spending gets them the biggest bang for the buck and, therefore, have begun to spend more on that segment than traditional ones. This is especially true of digital entertainment that corners more than half of India’s ad spend. In fact, according to estimates made by industry, digital advertising could exceed a figure of Rs.70,000 crores ($8.4 billion) by 2026.[2]

 

The Rise and Rise of Digital Entertainment

There are several compelling reasons for this to have happened. The humongous smartphone penetration and the massive internet connectivity available in terms of sheer number of people with that kind of access make digital advertising the obvious first choice for brand managers across industries. With 85.5% of Indian households possessing at least one smartphone and 86.3% households boasting on-premise internet access, it is a no-brainer that most people have extensive access to digital entertainment.[3]

India’s youth-driven demographics comprising millennials, Gen Zers and digital natives are highly engaged with the large number of digital entertainment platforms and channels they have round-the-clock access to. That is in a sense a captive audience or almost low-hanging fruit for most marketers and brand managers.

Social Media platforms like Facebook, X, Instagram, Threads, YouTube[4] and so on are an integral part of people’s daily lives in India making them very amenable as platforms for digital advertising. With the average Indian spending more than two and a half hours a day on accessing social media channels, advertisers know that they have a good thing going by placing their ads there.

Besides digital advertising achieves greater penetration in smaller cities and towns across India, what with the growing popularity of vernacular entertainment content. This helps marketers and advertisers create very successful localised digital ad campaigns.

 

Add to that the fact that digital advertising not only returns better ROI on every rupee spent, but can also be monitored closely allowing modification and course correction based on performance and you can see why it is going to grow exponentially in the coming year and beyond.

Going forward one can look forward to a bonanza for both Indian entertainment content creators and the digital advertising industry, given the sheer size of the expected ad spend. Good times are certainly here for these two industries and will only get better as the digitisation bandwagon continues to roll on.

 

 

 

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[1] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/india-population/

[2] https://www.cnbctv18.com/entertainment/digital-entertainment-now-drives-over-half-of-indias-ad-spend-ib-secretary-19628370.htm

[3] https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2132330

[4] https://www.google.com/search?q=average+time+spent+by+indians+on+social+media&rlz=1C1CHBD_enIN1066IN1066&oq=Average+amount+of+time+spent+by+Indians+on+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCAgBEAAYFhgeMgYIABBFGDkyCAgBEAAYFhgeMg0IAhAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IAxAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBBAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBRAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMgcIBhAAGO8FMgcIBxAAGO8FMgcICBAAGO8FMgoICRAAGIAEGKIE0gEJMjM3ODRqMGo0qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8