Incredible India, Make in India, God’s Own Country, Sweetest Part of India … There are some really catchy campaigns to promote the country, but are these pitched perfectly? Is there synergy when different agencies market India globally? More importantly, are these campaigns translating into a greater number of tourists coming to the country?

Even as it is rebooting the Incredible India campaign with a fresh set of creatives, the Union Ministry of Tourism is now trying to bring some convergence in the marketing of the nation. It hopes to create a bigger impact by making Incredible India the mother campaign on which State tourism and industry campaigns can piggyback. And, hopefully, raise India’s foreign tourist arrival statistics from the abysmal nine million they stand at now.

“We are making a fresh set of creatives around heritage for Incredible India’s new campaign. We are also working on a generic TV promo,” says Suman Billa, joint secretary, Ministry of Tourism. While Prasoon Joshi and his team at McCann are doing the heritage series, the generic promo is still at the storyboard stage.

The creative plans sound promising, but it’s the new media strategy that the tourism ministry is banking on for the campaign to deliver more bang for the buck. Spends on Incredible India are ₹300 crore annually.

Media efficiency

While the government has always had a creative agency, strangely enough only recently it hired a professional media planner. A year ago the tourism ministry engaged Carat Media. “Earlier we would get an agent to purchase slots in global media properties. There were two issues to that. One, how did we arrive at the choice of properties without crunching numbers? Second, how do you figure out how much cross-selling happens?” explains Billa.

Now, Carat Media churns the landscape and finds out which are the markets that hold potential, the best ways to approach these markets, and identifies the media properties breaking down audience numbers before suggesting a list of options.

A committee of experts analyses the media plan, looking at it qualitatively. Once the media plan is cleared, the ministry directly purchases the slot. “We sign something called an integrity pack that assures us the best price,” says Billa. The US is the biggest market for India, followed by Europe. Billa explains that two approaches are used to engage with these markets. “One, we try to cover as much area geographically through global media, such as CNN. Two, in some of the markets, we tie up with local channels to target specific audiences.”

According to Billa, digital spends are now 30-35 per cent. “The primary reference point for travel is digital so we need to increase spends there,” he says.

Sequencing it

This year, the ministry is proposing a convergence of campaigns that they hope will come about by sharing the media plan.

“Once we finalise the media plan we will be sharing the document with States, other ministries as well as the private sector. They can look at it and use it to their advantage,” says Billa.

Joint buying could yield dividends, for instance. Explains Billa, “Suppose I am buying X media spots, if others join in it could become 2X or 3X and we stand to get a better rate.”

Even if there is no joint buying, Billa says States can leverage the media plan by sequencing their campaigns more effectively.

Typically, the Incredible India campaign is a brand-building one, enhancing perception about the country. It has no call to action. But State tourism campaigns or a Taj Hotels advertisement have specific offers enabling a buy decision.

“Suppose we go out and beam the Incredible India campaign on CNN for two months, and it creates a momentum, it’s easier for, say, a Madhya Pradesh to build on that with a ‘Heart of Incredible India’ campaign,” says Billa. The impact of sequencing will be exponential.

Chinmai Sharma, chief revenue officer of Taj Hotels, which gets 50 per cent of its business from international guests, and is running a campaign on Tajness this year, agrees: “If we amplify the message together with the right timing, it will help.”

“Last year, the Incredible India campaign had good recall, but this year the coordination is a lot better and there is more collaboration,” he says, adding that public-private partnership is the best way to promote India. Taj is part of Experience India Society, an initiative of major hotel chains and tour operators in partnership with the Ministry of Tourism to promote India.

“We have given our inputs to a film by Bharatbala Productions,” says Sharma.

Measuring impact

According to Billa, benchmarking tourist arrivals against the Incredible India campaign is not a correct measure. “We get about 9 million foreign tourist arrivals. If you add NRIs it is 15 million. Between them we generate ₹1.44 lakh crore as forex – which looks rather rosy when you compare it to the ₹300-crore spend.”

“More than filling hotel rooms, we measure how the campaign is affecting the image of the country positively abroad,” says Billa. A third party agency audits the impact of the media plan – how many times it was seen, the extent of engagement, and so on.

Veteran media planner Gopinath Menon, who has assisted in media buying for Kerala tourism during his TBWA days, thinks the government is on the right track. But, he says, the ministry while doing its media strategy should understand the key difference between a traveller and a tourist. “The traveller is the core audience – and that should be factored into the business strategy.” Also, he warns, where things can go wrong is if there is no match between the media and the message. The media plan should work in tandem with the creative content and not in isolation.

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