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Sriram Srinivasan

Chennai , April 7

NIELSEN Media Research (NMR) has said it is open to the idea of simultaneously tracking media choices and buying habits of consumers in India, following a similar project in the US.

"We have spoken to a number of clients here," said Mr Ian Garland, Managing Director, Product Marketing & Development, NMR International, stressing the need for collaboration, as "typically, they (such projects) are expensive."

Nielsen, a part of VNU, and Arbitron, a marketing research firm, in collaboration with Procter & Gamble, plan to launch `Project Apollo' next year in the US.

The project, under which 30,000 households will be studied, seeks to monitor the source of consumers' marketing messages (by tracking media choices) and how they react to them (by studying buying habits).

Mr Garland, who earlier this week participated in the FICCI Frames 2005 convention in Mumbai, said such a comprehensive study could give clients what they need: a more complete picture.

On how new technologies have impacted the US media market of late, he said the threat to advertising from personal video recorders (PVRs) has been "over-hyped." It has been found that only a very small percentage of PVR users skip ads. There have been new avenues of advertising, one of which is the games industry. Companies such as McDonald's have placed ads inside computer games, contributing to a market that is worth $7 billion, he said.

Product placements in reality shows such as The Apprentice are also growing. It's set to grow to $4 billion in 2005, he said. "Advertising on TV is far from being on the downside. But there are newer avenues too."

With the Indian media market undergoing fast-paced changes in the last decade, and with improved technology as well as new delivery channels such as the broadband coming in, Nielsen's objective here will be to make the industry aware of the opportunities, he said.

Also, with only over 40 per cent of the households owning television sets, "the Indian market has a great potential."

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