Advertisement agencies work overtime to beat slowdown blues

The Rs 19,000 crore advertising industry in India could be the next to feel the heat of the economic slowdown but advertising agencies are working overtime to sustain topline growth.

Here is a verbatim transcript of Ashwin Mohan's comments on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.

Real estate companies have started to cut back on advertisements. Even financial institutions aren't pushing loans or mutual funds as aggressively as they were doing just a few months back. IPO have also disappeared and the brakes may be applied to auto advertisements as well.

Sam Balsara, Chairman, Madison World said, "While some categories have held back on advertising those categories were not key categories or not huge advertising sectors for.eg the financial sector as a whole accounts for only about 6% of the advertising sector, you know FMCG as a whole accounts for 45% that has continued and is doing very well."

Assessing the first nine months of the year, advertising agencies expect the industry to grow anywhere between 10 -12% next year. That's a clear dip from the over 18 to 20% growth rate the industry was clocking since 2004. With cash in short supply, advertisers have already started to monitor advertisement budgets closely and have begun re-negotiating with agencies for lower advertisement rates and advertising agencies are swift to react. They are looking to rework on their strategies, revisit their processes and even plan to outsource their operations to weather the slowdown.

Madhukar Kamath, Chairman, Mudra Group said, "Our key managers are in touch of every single clients, work along with them in terms of either refining budgetary allocations or take a step as far as communication planning is concerned as to which medium should it go into. We are looking at process efficiencies."

Even though Indian agencies are revising down targets based on a lower growth rate, it's still a better situation for the business here than in many other developed countries globally.