It’s not just computer programming and call centres that are being outsourced to India, it now appears that advertising and research on advertiser-funded programming is moving there too.

As the public gains more control over their media due to digitisation, we all know that traditional advertising takes a knock.

The massive Interpublic Group, which includes the advertising agency McCann-Erickson, is creating an Emerging Media Lab in India under one of their companies, Lodestar Universal.

It will not only have the now-inevitable ‘this is what the house of the future’ setup within it, but will be applying all of those highly-educated brains to studying the affects of these medias on individuals and try to apply some matrix to them.

Lodestar Universal CEO Shashi Sinha told Television India, “We are in the process of building up a credible measurement system for consumer behaviour in the activation, films and retail space with the launch of the Emerging Media Lab in India. Consumers today are involved in multiple activities at the same time and hence there was a need to churn out some mechanics to measure it.”

Sinha is very optimistic about the future of branded entertainment giving the example of paint manufacturer Nerolac, who are shifting their advertising spend by “starting allocating 20-25 per cent of their spends to the branded entertainment space.” He believes this will shift over the next five years to half of their spend.

Those in the West would do well to gain an understanding as deep as our Indian cousins appear to have.

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