Splurging on ad expenses

We take a look at the efficiency of ad expenses for FMCG companies

- Vishal Goyal

Over FY18–22, Hindustan Unilever’s ad spend was pegged at around ₹23,000 crore – around 44 per cent of its FY22 revenue. Interestingly, even though its products are ubiquitously available across the country, the company leaves no stone unturned to promote its products.

Given this, we have delved into the biggest ad spenders in the BSE FMCG Index. Since the FY23 results were not available for all the companies, we have used the data from FY13 to FY22. Only 10 companies have a 10-year average advertising expense-to-revenue ratio of at least 10 per cent (see the table ‘Big on ads!’).