Last Sunday, when the world celebrated International Day of Yoga, Father’s Day, or any of their own private celebrations, there was a small surprise packet being scripted on television.

When Sony Entertainment Television was screening Hindi movie PK for the first time on television, one could not help spot an ad with people exercising their neck. The ad, titled Headspin, had nothing to do with Indians rekindling their affair with Yoga. Instead, this was an ad from another big Y, YouTube.

The ad made you sit up and take note for many reasons. First, the ad on television was something akin to a giant e-tailer like Flipkart or an Amazon acquiring advertising space inside the premises of a brick-and-mortar retail outlet. That’s something no retailer in a right frame of mind would permit. But in life and business, one cannot rule out any possibility.

Paritosh Joshi of Provocateur Advisory, an independent media and communications consultancy, quotes his “favourite example of irony.” A few years ago, when a leading publication decided to launch a concept called No TV Day, a large part of the campaign’s spends were through television commercials. The broadcasters realised much later that they were axing the same branch on which they were seated, by telecasting this ad.

In this case, YouTube is being portrayed by many as the future of television — a giant killer that will take viewers away, en masse , from the television screen. In fact, the proposition of the ad YouTube Offline, “where users can now enjoy videos even during periods of low or no Internet connectivity” brings the product somewhat closer to a conventional television screen.

Some already say that the viewership of YouTube in India is so large that it could easily qualify as the sixth, if not fifth, largest general entertainment channel in India. So why would an advertiser like YouTube need the might of a television general entertainment channel to send its message across? By riding on the back of television, is YouTube undermining its own reach?

Bandwidth factor

Sandeep Menon, Director, Marketing, Google India, says the campaign was released on television to reach out to YouTube’s new users who have been using internet through their smartphones for the first time. “This is a part of our focused strategy to reach out to netizens who have just started experiencing the world of internet,” he says.

Others like Partha Sinha, director, Publicis India, says, “It’s sort of like resigning to fate. Bandwidth issues in India are a joke. As a result, online brands need to take recourse to offline media.” Menon does not deny the issues that affect internet usage either. “In India, low bandwidth and high data cost often drive large audiences to side-load content. Considering the everyday data issues, YouTube Offline is an ideal tool for a large number of users to consume their favourite largest library of content without worrying too much about buffering.” Menon adds that they first launched this campaign on YouTube and online channels to tap its current user base. “Through TV, we aim to extend it to audiences that are not frequently online,” he says.

The other unspoken benefit of advertising through offline media like television and print is the tremendous reach that they offer. Television, for example, reaches 600 million Indians above the age of 12 every week. “In the foreseeable future, YouTube will remain a satellite medium while television will be the master audio visual medium,” says Joshi.

Reaching the untapped consumer is another big reason why most online brands, including giant retailers like Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal, bank on conventional media, and not digital media, as the primary source to reach their consumers.

Praveen Sinha, founder and MD, Jabong, an online fashion retailer, says, “We have clearly segregated the offline medium like TV and print as brand building mediums. These are still the most efficient media to establish Jabong as fashion destination among relevant stake holders. Mass media like TV and print also help in getting new customers to visit and experience the site. The untapped market for e-commerce is still quite huge and television and print are best medium to reach such target groups.”

Probably, television and print can continue to celebrate their dominance as the big daddies of media — at least, for a few more Father’s days.

(With inputs from Sravanthi Challapalli)

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