Magazines had always been one of the most important sources of advertisements. However, in recent times, we have been seeing a decline in advertising volumes in magazines. According to the reports of TAM AdEx advertising volumes in magazines have been declining over the past five years. The count of magazines has also gone down by 12.8 per cent from 194 in 2015 to 169 in 2019.
Read More: Industry Leaders To Look Out For In 2020!
The TAM AdEx report showcases and verifies the various trends of advertising in magazines in 2019. It does an in-depth assessment and helps in understanding the recent scenario of advertising over the last 5 years and covers the magazine landscape across states, languages, genre, etc.
However, we saw a peak in advertising in the magazines in the month of June for both 2018 and 2019 and multiple course category witnessed the highest advertising in the month for both years at 10 per cent as compared to August and September when it was at 9 per cent.
Advertising in magazines differs in many ways. Besides ads size, there are various other types of advertising which include display ads, advertorials, classifieds, and special promotions, which may include products to be featured in an article or a series of articles on a particular subject.
Talking about specifically India, the rise of specialized content on TV and Digital mediums challenged the magazines to a great level. Magazines, in order to come up with a lot of ideas to be on par with them, made a rise in weekly supplements published by newspapers. The content which was earlier exclusive to magazines was now available through other mediums which in turn lead to dissolution or fragmentation of the audience from magazines to other mediums of media.
The top 10 sectors cover 73% of advertising in magazines with the services sector on top 17% share followed by personal accessories sector at 10%. Both these sectors were also on top in Jan-Oct, 2018 as well. Among the top categories, hospital/clinics and travel & tourism belonged to the services sector, the topmost in the sector’s list. The top 10 advertisers cover a 6% share of advertising, with LIC on top, followed by Swatch Group India with nearly 1%. LIC shifted to top position in 2019 from the tenth position in 2018.
The top ten magazine genres covered more than 90 per cent share of ad volumes. The advertisers mostly prefer the “women” genre which has a 26% share of ad volumes. It is followed next by Current Affairs which has a 24 % share, according to a report. Also, among the top ten categories for advertising in magazines were – Retail Outlets-Jewellers, Readymade Garments and OTC Product Range, with the maximum advertisement being in women-centric magazines.
