How do Advertisers chase Viewers? If viewerships are more on Sundays, do the advertisers also reserve their highest impact (GRP deliveries) on Sundays? A team at TAM Media analysed these effects for the 3056 brands that advertised in July 2003 to find answers on how advertisers chase their consumers on television.

One of the very interesting trends that we had observed was that the treatment for C&S audiences was very different versus when compared to their brothers in non-C&S (or Terrestrial) homes. While advertisers targeting C&S audiences gave as much importance to middle-of-the-week as to Sundays, the trend was quite the opposite for how advertisers looked at All homes. The audiences bought on Sundays (measured as GRPs delivered on Sundays) was at least 13 to 15% higher than those bought in the middle-of-the-week

However, what's critical to the study is how these trends go vis-à-vis viewership during the week. Here comes the surprise. While Advertiser strategies for all homes mirror viewership trends, they don't quite go together for C&S homes as seen in the two charts below.

Viewership versus Advertising bought: Individuals in All Homes

As one can see in the chart above, the advertisers follow the viewership trends meticulously by buying most audiences on Sunday followed by mid-week and Saturdays. However, if we see the chart for C&S below, one sees that despite Mon-Fri viewing trends remaining the same, the advertisers are buying most audiences in a Tue-Wed-Thu schedule. In fact, what's most surprising is that even though viewership on Sundays is 16% higher than Tuesdays, the advertising bought on Sundays is lower than that on Tuesdays. A very strange phenomenon indeed! The disparity continues even when we consider weight of advertising versus weight of viewership on Fridays and Saturdays.

Viewership versus Advertising bought: Individuals in All Homes

So what could be the reasons for this mismatch that exists between Viewing Trends versus Advertising Trends for C&S audiences? One of the hypotheses is the fact that even if viewing on Sundays is more than that for mid-week, it's all fragmented across a host of channels versus that being bunched together on a few channels during the weekdays.

We would continue to bring you more interesting trends on the same in days to come. Watch this space for more!

An Adex India Team Analysis