Soap operas or social media: Which way the Indian Multinationals swing

Multinationals in India spend crores of rupees every year for promoting their products through sponsoring T.V. serials (also known as “soap operas”). This strategy worked very well for a long time as masses were glued to their television sets to watch several serials in a day, sometimes continuously for hours. While the practice continues till date, the multinationals are finding out ways of reaching large number of audience for promoting their products. One such strategy is through the social sites like Facebook, twitter etc. This article studies the usage of such strategies by the multinational companies in India especially in the FMCG sector and the success rate of such attempts.

While attempting to find out facts on viewership in both forms of communications, the author examines the possibilities of different sections of society following different trends of communication in reaching out effectively to promotions of different products.