Election campaign spends set to buoy OOH business

As the 18^th General Elections to the Lok Sabha approach, political parties across the board are gearing up for massive campaigns. National parties Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Indian National Congress have already appointed various agencies for the media and creative duties. As reported recently by Storyboard18, BJP has appointed Madison Media to undertake the media buying for the election campaign, across all media channels. Meanwhile, Congress has vested the media duties for the campaign with IPG Mediabrands.

Political parties have consistently apportioned large slices of their budgets for Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections down the years. The Hindu reports on March 11 that “:over the past two decades, this trend has caught up with both Central and State governments spending a lot on advertisements before elections to the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies.”

India Today reports Meta and Google estimates of political ad spending in India in the three months preceding March to be of the order of Rs 102.7 crore. As the political parties step up the media campaign spends in the run-up to the polls, it has been variously estimated that Rs 400 crore could be spent on OOH media.