With the summer season at its peak, advertisements of the food and beverage (F&B) sector have kicked off. Advertisement volumes of F&B sector on television grew 43% during January-March 2021 compared to the same period in 2020 while digital recorded 75% growth. Print and radio mediums also saw a tremendous rise, posting 28% and 61% increase, respectively in ad volumes during Jan-Mar’21, according to the data released by AdEx India, a division of TAM Media Research.
Among F&B sector, Hindustan Unilever emerged as the top advertiser on television with 14% share of the sector ad volume, meanwhile GCMMF (Amul) topped the charts in print with 11% share during the year. Digital, on the other hand, saw Cadburys India securing the numero uno position with 14% share of the ad volume with Mother Dairy Fruit & Veg topping the charts in radio at 18% share.
On TV, general entertainment channels (GEC) genre emerged as the preferred genre for F&B sector’s advertising as it accounted for 36% share of the sector ad volume share on television. Following this was the movie genre with 24% share and news with 18% share. Music and Kids genres trailed behind at 6% and 2% share, respectively. The top two channel genres on TV together accounted for 55% share of ad volumes for the F&B sector in 2021. Prime Time had the highest advertising of auto brands with 31% share of ad volumes on TV with 20-40 seconds ad size being preferred by 72% advertisers. Interestingly, while HUL dominated the TV advertisement space as the biggest advertiser, ITC’s Sunfeast Yippee Saucy Masala emerged as the most advertised brand during Jan-Mar’21.
In print, Hindi newspapers accounted for 49% share of F&B sector advertisements, followed by English newspapers at 17%. Marathi newspapers claimed the third position with 6% share while Gujarati and Tamil newspapers trailed behind with 5% share each. The top five publication languages together added more than 80% share of sector’s ad volumes. Meanwhile, publication genre General Interest had 99% share of ad space in print, while Business/Finance/Economy accounted for 1%. As per the data, Pushp Quick Fry emerged as the most advertised brand in print.
Interestingly, Gujarat topped all the states with 18% share of the sector’s ad volumes on radio during 2021, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 14% share. Unlike television, radio saw afternoon time-bands as the most preferred time for the sector’s advertisements, with the band accounting for 36% share. According to TAM, there were more than 250 new brands observed during Jan-Mar’21 over Jan-Mar’20. Out of this, Mother Dairy Milk was the top new brand on radio medium, and also emerged as the most advertised brand.
As for digital, programmatic method captured 77% share of F&B sector insertions on digital. Following this was ad network at 15% share with Programmatic/Ad Network accounting for 4% share.