80–85% of GCPL’s internet investments now directed to CTV, says Harshdeep Chhabra

New Delhi: FMCG major Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) is in no mood to take TV lightly. When most advertisers are eyeing digital-first headlines, GCPL is attempting to cement TV as central to their modern media strategy. 

For a company selling soaps, hair dye and mosquito repellents, among others, scale is key. Aligned with this, GCPL works on five basic rules. 

“Every buyer matters; our buyers are similar to our competitors’ buyers; continuity in advertising supports brand growth; reinforcing memory structures is essential; and brand building drives higher growth,” laid out Harshdeep Chhabra, Head - Global Media, GCPL. 

With the ad pedal on full throttle, the company jumped from the 17th biggest advertiser in 2021 to the 5th in 2023, according to the Pitch Madison Advertising Report 2024.  And in this fast-moving wagon, TV has the VIP seats. 

Chhabra believes TV continues to be the mass-reach driver in India. From linear to connected screens, from public broadcasters like Doordarshan to rural audiences via Freedish, GCPL is betting on a unified media model it believes will keep television powerful in a digital-first world. 

According to BARC data shared by the company, GCPL now ranks third in linear TV GRP share, behind only two other major advertisers, after a 2.5x increase in ad spends since 2021. Notably, it is also the only Indian-origin advertiser in the lot of five. 

The growth in GRP and the “only Indian-origin advertiser” status is proof that the medium is still central to GCPL’s growth ambitions. “Linear TV still has its loyal audience, particularly in certain genres, where it is preferred over Connected TV due to factors like Wi-Fi strength and reception quality,” Chhabra said. 

In this wagon that Chhabra is leading, CTV is definitely not in the backseat. The number of connected TV homes in India has jumped from 4 million in 2020 to an estimated 40 million in 2025. GCPL has integrated connected TV into its media mix, using it to add targeting depth to the broad reach of linear TV.

“We are ready to pick up as much CTV inventory as becomes available, and we tend to max it out in most of our plans because it has delivered strong returns. Overall, around 80-85% of our internet investments are currently directed towards connected TV,” Chhabra told BestMediaInfo.com. 

Citing industry sources, Chhabra spoke of 10 media owners currently commanding 70% of ad spend. GCPL is betting that the number will shrink to just four key partners in the coming years, with Doordarshan and Freedish staging a revival as one of them.

Among Chhabra’s boldest predictions is a Doordarshan comeback. “They’ve got the data ecosystem through Aadhaar, they’ve got the platform called DD Free Dish, which is exploding, they’ve got the content ecosystem. They have got everything it takes,” he said. 

The possible logic? As pay TV penetration continues to drop and subscription fatigue sets in, Freedish’s free-to-air model could become a cost-effective way to reach mass audiences, especially in rural and semi-urban markets.

To get more establishment beneath, Chhabra said GCPL’s media team spends 10 days every quarter on market visits. These trips often reveal regional viewing patterns that data alone does not show.

In Odisha, for example, Hindi TV loses dominance outside Bhubaneswar, with Odia and sometimes Telugu channels taking its place. In Maharashtra, affluent southern districts prefer Marathi, while poorer northern districts watch more Hindi. These insights lead to these investment decisions. 

There is a notable shift in GCPL’s TV strategy. The FMCG behemoth is moving from chasing the lowest cost per reach to focusing on the lowest cost per attentive reach. In other words, it’s not enough for an ad to reach someone; it needs to capture and hold their attention.

Chhabra explained that this means balancing scaled reach with the right frequency and message retention. “Continuity in memory comes from a combination of scale, attention to the message, and the right frequency,” he said, noting that this is particularly important for FMCG categories where competition is intense and differentiation is often subtle.

Aligned with this, GCPL is measuring not only how many people it reaches but also how many are actively watching when ads play. Chhabra said the company has run in-home studies for several months to track eyes-on-screen and eyes-off-screen behaviour, and how this changes by time slot, genre and ad placement.

One of the more ambitious parts of GCPL’s plan is to track competition reach not just on linear TV but across all mediums. This involves working with multiple measurement partners to build a single consumer view, transcending the “walled gardens” that often keep TV and digital data separate.

According to the head - global media, “all of the big broadcasters have the advantage of media TV feeds and connected TV feeds. Today, they’re being sold separately, but the minute they’re brought into one place and the conversation happens in one currency, exactly the way Google has built out the YouTube ecosystem, a lot of that work will come together.” 

“We’re working with various measurement companies like Nielsen, Kantar, The Trade Desk, among others, to make sure this happens. This has already happened in markets like the US and UK, where the World Federation of Advertisers has managed to influence Google and Meta to break their walled gardens. We believe it’s only a matter of time before we can make it happen here,” said Chhabra. 

For now, GCPL’s television strategy is a hybrid of continuity and change. It is keeping the scale and trust of linear TV, adding the precision and flexibility of CTV, betting on the revival of underused mass-reach platforms like Doordarshan, and layering it all with data-driven targeting and unified measurement.

If it works, it could serve as a blueprint for other FMCG advertisers navigating the increasingly fragmented video landscape. And if it doesn’t? The bet is that GCPL’s commitment to first principles will keep its brands visible, memorable, and competitive, no matter how the screens change.