04 — How we work
Broadcast, Print & Cinema.
Traditional weight where it still carries a market — regional news, radio drive-time, the dailies people actually read, and cinema on-screen.
The decision
The right title in Kanpur is not the right one in Kochi.
Why it is worth planning
It has become fashionable to write off print and radio nationally, and in several markets that is simply wrong. A regional daily still sets the morning agenda in large parts of India, and a masthead that carries local credibility transfers some of it to what appears in it. Radio owns the drive-time hour in cities where the commute is long and the vehicle is private. Neither is a mass medium any more; both are still a concentrated one.
Cinema is the opposite argument. Its audience is small relative to television and its attention is close to total — a dark room, a captive screen and no second device in hand. For a launch that needs the message understood rather than merely seen, that trade is often worth making.
These media are still licensed and still documented, just not as a hoarding is. Print carries advertisement tax in the cities that levy it on insertions; a sky-sign rule does not apply to a page and applying it anyway is how a plan gets the permission file wrong. Illumination is a cinema-screen problem, not a newspaper one. Monitoring photographs close outdoor; tearsheets and play-out logs close this. We do not print circulation or listenership figures — those are licensed research numbers we do not have the right to repeat.
What we plan
Categories, not a holding.
Typical sizes and how the market buys them. None of this is a site we hold.
- Cinema on-screen
- 45 × 19 ft
- Regional news television
- bought by spot
- FM radio, drive time
- bought by spot
- Daily press
- bought by column
How the buy is made
The part that decides whether it works.
- 01
Market by market, not nationally
The right print title in Kanpur is not the right one in Kochi, and a national average hides both. We plan these media at the level of the market you are actually trying to move.
- 02
Radio bought by hour
Drive-time is the product. Off-peak inventory is cheap because it is worth less. We buy the hour and the station the audience is genuinely with, and we would rather run fewer, better-placed spots than a large number of filler ones.
- 03
Print for credibility, not reach
Where print still works it works because of the title's standing, not its circulation. Position, section and day of week carry most of the value, and they are the parts a rate card does not describe.
- 04
Cinema for comprehension
On-screen is planned around the release calendar and the properties your audience will turn out for, because the film decides the audience far more than the multiplex does.
If a word above was doing work you had to guess at
When it earns its place
Concrete situations, not a menu.
- 01A market where a regional daily still sets the morning, and the masthead's standing is the thing you are buying — not a national reach number.
- 02A city whose commute is long enough, and private enough, that drive-time radio is a room the brand can enter.
- 03A launch that needs the message understood in the dark, on a cinema screen, for the length of a trailer — not glanced at from a flyover.
- 04A plan argued city by city. A national average of print or radio is how both Kanpur and Kochi get the wrong title.
When to spend it elsewhere
We would rather say so early.
If your audience is young, urban and streaming-first, most of this will underdeliver against digital and outdoor. These media are precise instruments for particular markets, not a default layer to add for completeness.
What lands on your desk
Documented, not described.
Every campaign ends with a file you can hand to someone who was not in the room.
- Title, station and screen selection argued at market level
- Position, section, daypart and release-window specifics agreed in advance
- Negotiated rates with the owner, disclosed to you
- Tearsheets for print, broadcast logs for radio and television
- Cinema play-out confirmation by property and location
- A consolidated post-campaign report across every channel used
Questions that actually get asked
Including the ones about cost.
How much does radio, print or cinema advertising cost?
+
By hour and station for radio, by title, section and day for print, by film and property for cinema. A drive-time spot and an off-peak spot are not the same purchase; neither is a masthead on Monday and a filler on Thursday. We will show you the variables in your market. We will not publish a rate.
Why don't you publish circulation or listenership figures?
+
Those are licensed research numbers — IRS, RAM, BARC — and we do not have the right to print them. Character of the audience, yes. A figure we have not licensed, no. We will show you the current ones at planning, from the source that owns them.
Is print still worth buying in India?
+
In some markets, yes, and in others it is nostalgia. The test is whether a specific title still sets the morning for the people you need. A national write-off hides the markets where it does; a national buy hides the ones where it does not.
Why buy cinema instead of a hoarding?
+
For comprehension, not reach. A dark room, a captive screen and no second device is a different product from a roadside face. If the job is to be seen on a commute, buy the hoarding. If the job is to be understood, the screen is often the right trade.
How do you prove print, radio or cinema ran?
+
Tearsheets for print, broadcast logs for radio and television, play-out confirmation by property for cinema. Monitoring photographs belong to outdoor. Each medium has a document that matches how it is sold; we collect that document, not a substitute.
Do you own airtime or titles?
+
No. We plan market by market and buy from the owner. A network mandate would decide the title before the market did. The market decides; the title is what we go and get.
The rest of the plan
Most plans use more than one.
Broadcast and print carry a market outdoor cannot speak to in the morning paper or the car. Cinema is for comprehension. None of them replace a corridor, and a corridor does not replace a masthead that still sets the day.
- 01
Outdoor & Transit
Hoardings, transit and street furniture, compared and bought across owners.
Read → - 02
Digital Out-of-Home
LED and programmatic DOOH, bought by daypart and location.
Read → - 03
Retail & Hyperlocal
Mall, multiplex, society lift and store-catchment media.
Read → - 05
Activations & Corporate Gifting
When the plan needs a person in the place, not only a board.
Read → - 06
Barter & Trade Structuring
When the media plan is right and cash is the constraint.
How barter works →