Strategic Relationship Between Advertising Clutter and Polychronic Time Use: A Study of Indian Youth

As globalization becomes ever more prominent, the role of media and advertising is increasing. Ideally for large multinationals that have the resources to take advantage of globalization there exists a larger “market” to which products can be sold. To create and sustain their market, these multinationals companies use aggressive advertising strategies. Television is a aggressive advertising media for these companies. In India television advertising has been expanding throughout the 1990s. Close on the heels of multinationals, domestic companies are also using television as a media to reach the Indian masses. As a result, the number of television commercials is increasing. With this the frequency and time of advertising pods, in a program, are also increasing. This competition between the program content and advertising pods is known as “clutter”. This advertising clutter and has led to companies questioning the efficiency of the medium of communication, in terms of reducing the competitive rivalry and creating a brand impression. This paper aims at understanding this relationship between advertising clutter and multiple activities a viewer might be involved in i.e. polychronic use of time: as proposed by Kaufman and Lane (1994). The study concludes that Indian youth exhibit mental nomadship rather than channel or physical nomadship, at current levels of advertising. Furthermore, channel nomadship has a significant relationship with the person who has control over the remote and the time for which the television is being watched. Physical nomadship has a significant relationship with age, gender and education level. Finally, mental nomadship was related to gender and education level. The study also has important implications for managers.