The 2024 election season unleashed something of a perfect storm across India’s advertising market, and commercial brands were left scrapping for whatever crumbs of attention remained in a landscape so thoroughly saturated with political messaging. It rather makes you wonder: what happens when democracy’s grandest spectacle collides headlong with the attention economy?
When the parliamentary elections finally got underway, advertisers braced themselves for a tricky quarter – that much was a given. Yet few, if any, could have predicted quite how profound the ensuing disruption would prove to be.
The figures, inevitably, are stark. Political parties collectively funnelled an estimated ₹3,000 to ₹3,500 crore into media advertising over the election period. This injection of political capital into an already congested advertising ecosystem did not simply dominate the news cycle; it fundamentally reconfigured the economic logic of both digital and traditional advertising for several months on end.
For commercial brands, the consequences were both immediate and acute. Ad rates surged by 40–50% across television and digital platforms during peak election coverage, with some news channels hiking their rates by three or even four times during polling and exit poll content. On counting day itself, rates on certain networks climbed by an eye-watering 20 to 25 times.
The Digital Feeding Frenzy
It was in the digital space, though, that competition became most ferocious. Political parties poured unprecedented sums into platforms like Google and Meta, generating a severe shortage of ad inventory that left commercial advertisers scrambling for space. This sheer weight of media investment squeezed the market and forced many brands to pull back on their campaigns, confronting them with a fairly brutal choice: pay up, or sit things out entirely. For some, it must have felt like there was no third way.
The scale of this squeeze is genuinely remarkable. The Bharatiya Janata Party alone raised over ₹6,000 crore during the campaign period, spending nearly ₹1,800 crore – a considerable chunk of that directed towards digital advertising. Across 22 major political parties, combined media ad spend reached close to ₹1,000 crore, with an additional ₹200 crore carved out specifically for social media and virtual campaigning. It is a lot of money, whichever way you cut it.
This surge produced what industry observers have described as a 'crowding out' effect. Commercial brands, accustomed to relatively predictable CPMs and reliable inventory, found themselves locked in bidding wars with political campaigns that appeared to operate with effectively limitless budgets and a willingness to pay a premium for visibility during critical moments.
The CPM Squeeze
The cost-per-mile dynamic shifted quite dramatically. Political ads tend to carry a premium over brand advertising anyway, given their urgency and the specificity of their targeting requirements. During election periods, this premium only expanded. Analysis from Bihar's 2025 assembly elections – where parties spent over ₹4.8 crore on Google and Meta ads in a single month – reveals how this dynamic plays out even at the state level. The competition for inventory drove costs up by an estimated 20–30%, depending on the demographic cohorts being targeted. For commercial brands, this posed a difficult set of calculations. Do they keep spending at inflated rates simply to maintain visibility? Or do they pull back and risk losing share of voice during one of the most intensely engaged media periods of the entire year?
The Viewership Shift
Beyond the purely monetary concerns, brands faced a more fundamental headache: where, exactly, had the audience gone? The unexpected electoral drama – with the BJP failing to secure an outright majority – generated a surge in news viewership that caught many advertisers somewhat off guard. Major news channels saw their viewership spike by nearly 30% during the results coverage relative to the previous month; on some individual platforms, the increase was even more dramatic, with certain channels registering 50–60% gains on election day itself.
This shift in audience attention had a cascading effect across other content categories. In a telling sign of just how disruptive the election proved, a quarter of brands reallocated their advertising budgets from the T20 World Cup to news channels during the electoral period. The World Cup – ordinarily a guaranteed audience magnet – suddenly found itself competing with political theatre for both viewers and advertiser rupees. It is not the kind of competition most media planners would have anticipated.
Traditional Advertising's Uneven Impact
Not every media channel felt the squeeze equally, of course; there were distinct winners and losers across the advertising ecosystem. Out-of-home advertising emerged as something of a surprise performer, posting the strongest growth among traditional media and reaching nearly ₹4,700 crore. The sector clearly benefited from strong political spending during the general elections, with money flowing into billboards, hoardings, and street-level visibility.
Other traditional segments, however, fared rather less well. Television advertising actually dragged down overall industry growth, driven by a decline in ad volumes and a shift in viewership towards connected TVs – whose revenues, confusingly, are counted under digital media. The disparity between sectors was striking: digital media generated the vast majority of total ad growth, meaning that traditional media effectively subtracted from the overall figure.
Perhaps most dramatic of all was the blow dealt to the traditional printing industry by the shift towards digital campaigning. The business of election campaign materials – flags, banners, posters, badges, and the like – declined by a staggering 60%, with the remaining activity representing only a fraction of what was typical in previous cycles. Where a candidate might once have spent twelve to fifteen lakh rupees on such materials, now not even half of that is being spent. The reason is straightforward enough: the entire approach to campaigning has changed. Now, it is all about reels and digital content, and the physical paraphernalia of elections has become something of an afterthought.
Micro-Targeting and the Echo Chamber Effect
The election also accelerated a trend that commercial advertisers are only beginning to properly grasp: the shift from broad-based awareness campaigns to hyper-targeted micro-messaging. Political parties deployed data analytics to an unprecedented degree, with the BJP's SARAL app standing as a notable case study in voter micro-targeting. The party's app collected granular demographic information – caste, religion, profession, voting history – to enable bespoke messaging for specific voter groups. For commercial brands, this creates a mixed picture. On the one hand, competition for visibility in an environment where algorithms prioritise engagement over brand presence is a real challenge. On the other, there are lessons to be learned from political campaigns' sophisticated use of micro-targeting and influencer networks.
Influencer marketing, in particular, saw explosive growth in the political space. Both national parties and surrogate pages leveraged local nano-influencers and prominent creators to shape voter sentiment. In this context, influencer marketing proved far more effective than traditional advertising as audiences got closer to making a decision – whether that decision was about purchasing or voting. There is something rather telling in that.
The Regulatory Gap
One of the more significant challenges facing commercial advertisers during the election period was the regulatory blind spot concerning digital political advertising. Legislation introduced in Parliament seeks to address some of these gaps by mandating disclosures for political advertisements and imposing penalties for undisclosed paid news. However, the provisions primarily target media firms rather than the platforms where digital advertising actually occurs. Industry observers note that online spending by third parties – political supporters, influencers, and surrogate pages – remains highly significant and largely unmonitored. Despite the Election Commission's guidelines and voluntary codes of conduct, compliance and effective oversight remain patchy at best. This regulatory gap has clear implications for commercial brands: when political advertising operates in a grey area, it can distort the marketplace in ways that make it difficult for brands to compete on a level playing field.
Lessons for Commercial Advertisers
So, what should brands take away from the 2024 election advertising surge? A few things, perhaps.
Plan for disruption: election cycles will continue to tighten ad inventory and drive up costs. Brands need to build flexibility into their media plans so that they can either increase budgets during peak periods or shift to less contested channels.
Understand audience behaviour: when political drama dominates public attention, commercial messages need to be either more relevant or more creative. The brands that succeeded during the election period were those that connected their messaging to the national conversation in some meaningful way.
Accelerate digital transformation: the shift from traditional to digital advertising is not slowing down; if anything, it is gathering pace. As the political sector has demonstrated, digital platforms now offer the scale, targeting, and measurement that traditional media simply cannot match.
Look for white space: not every media channel was affected equally. Out-of-home advertising, for instance, saw political spending without the same level of CPM inflation that plagued digital platforms. There may well be similar opportunities in future cycles.
Prepare for scrutiny: the regulatory environment is catching up with digital political advertising, and brands should expect that similar scrutiny will eventually extend to commercial advertising on these platforms. It would be unwise to assume otherwise.
The Road Ahead
The Indian advertising industry crossed ₹1.08 lakh crore in 2024, growing at its lowest rate since 2017. The outlook is more optimistic, with projections of stronger growth to reach ₹1.2 lakh crore. Digital media's dominance is only growing. In 2019, digital comprised nearly a third of total ad spends; by 2024, that figure had reached well over half. The trend is projected to continue, with digital growing at more than triple the rate of traditional media.
For commercial brands, the lesson of the 2024 elections is clear enough: political advertising is no longer a niche concern. It is a force that can reshape the entire advertising marketplace, driving up costs, shifting audience attention, and accelerating trends that brands ignore at their peril. The attention economy does not pause for elections; if anything, it intensifies. And that, perhaps, is the most important thing to remember.
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