Advertisers rush for WC media slots

With the World Cup football knocking at the door different companies dealing in consumer products and services appear to have gone in a frenzy of booking media spaces and slots in print and electronic media,reports NewAge.
Insiders in advertising industry estimated a huge budget of nearly Tk 100 crore in diversified ads in television channels and newspapers as well as in billboards, posters, flayers and even sponsoring large screen televisions at different campus dormitories.
Brand operators, they said, fought tough for booking slots for 25 live matches on BTV and to book other channels’ sports programmes, news breaks as well as spaces and contents in the major dailies and magazines.
One senior official of Bangladesh Television said Banglalink, Robi and Pran had booked two-thirds of the advertising spots during the live matches. Others like Prime Bank, Rupchnda and Pedrollo also bought some ad slots in the state-owned television.
The state-owned channel, which has exclusive right to relay live matches, sold Tk 15 crore worth of advertisement spots for the match breaks, it was learnt. Spots in other BTV programmes would fetch Tk 20 crore or more during the month-long World Cup.
Brand operators were enticed to book slots in BTV as some 6.8 crore viewers are expected to watch the live matches on the state-owned television, according to media monitoring agencies.
Media industry sources estimated that three highly viewed private channels—ATN Bangla, Channel i and ntv—would earn around Tk 25 crore during the World Cup football extravaganza.
‘Other channels will also earn in crores… Even the new entrant ATN News launched it transmission hurriedly to have a share of World Cup bonanza,’ said a top one media booking agent.
Advertising agencies listed that Grameenphone, banglalink, Robi, Pran, Pespi, Coca Cola and some television set marketing companies are the top spenders in during World Cup ad campaigns.
Aly Zaker, chairman of the Asiatic MCL, said their media buying agency Maxus, however, estimated advertisers’ spending during World Cup would be worth Tk 20 crore.
‘All the companies are not having budget for the World Cup… If they had they would have shaken up the advertising industry,’ he quipped.
The country’s advertising industry has a turnover of about Tk 2,000 crore annually, according to industry people.
One advertiser said World Cup revenue for the print media would not be too small either.
‘Fight was there for space in a major Bengali daily that will gain Tk 1.5 crore bills for quiz competitions and branding through the paper’s sports pages,’ he said.
‘A mobile phone operator bid astonishing price for putting its logo on the daily’s front page report from South Africa by its renowned sports writer,’ he said.
Ajay Kundu, media director of Mediacom, said earnings of televisions and dailies would be twice than that in the last World Cup.
Muneer Ahmed Khan, managing director of Unitrend, pointed out that advertisement rates in major dailies increased much in recent times while the newspapers on their part also improved the pages with colour and contents.
Nurul Abser, director of Elctromart– marketer of Konka television sets– said they already spent Tk 20 lakh for World Cup advertising. ‘Spending by Walton and others are seemingly much more,’ he said.
One media buyer said that some companies like ACI would sponsor installation of large screen televisions in dormitories of the Dhaka University.
‘Really no company wants to miss this World Cup opportunity… many have special budget for it while others are diverting funds from their annual media budget,’ said Shamsunnahar Tarek of Adcom.

Courtesy of NewAge