Political Parties Likely To Spend Rs 1500 To 2000 Crore In Ads For 2024 Lok Sabha Polls: Report – News18

Lok Sabha Elections 2024 are just around the corner, with the parties rallying cities and towns to secure a powerful vote bank. While the official dates of the Lok Sabha elections have not been announced yet by the Election Commission, both the ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition parties have started their preparations for the upcoming election. As per the estimates, the political parties are likely to spend between Rs 1,500 and 2,000 crore on their election campaigns during this Lok Sabha election.

According to the report in the Economic Times, Group M, WPP’s media investment arm, predicts 10.2 per cent growth in Indian advertising revenue this year, which is lower than the 11.3 per cent growth in 2023. The Lok Sabha Elections and cricket with auto, real estate, retail, and SMEs are expected to become the factors for advertising growth in 2023. Group M South Asia CEO Prasanth Kuman said that the first half of the year will have better growth than the second half due to the Lok Sabha Elections, the IPL and the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. He further predicts that the political parties will spend 55 per cent of the fund on digital media, while TV, print, outdoor and radio will account for the remaining 45 per cent during the election campaign.

While drawing comparisons, Kunal Lalani, Chairman of Crayons Advertising, said, ‘I think the amount spent on campaigning for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be much more than the 2019 elections.’ It is anticipated that the national parties, the BJP and Congress, are likely to spend money on election campaigning, whereas the regional political parties are expected to have relatively smaller election budgets at their disposal.

The election campaigning through digital advertisements will play a major role in shaping the election. The report from the Economic Times expects incremental ad revenue of Rs 14,423 crore in 2024. 70 per cent of those expenditures will be for digital mediums, while the remaining 30 per cent will be for traditional mediums like TV, print, outdoor, radio and in-cinema. The election campaigns, which used to centre around television at one time, will now be replaced by the digital medium. Prasanth Kumar claims that TV is almost getting the same amount of spending year-on-year, but digital is getting a higher share of money from the overall advertising expenditure.